DEATH DEALING FOG

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 7, 8 December 1930, Page 7

DEATH DEALING FOG

LIFTED IN BELGIUM

SIXTY-NINE DEATHS

SHIPPING IN THAMES MOVING

A dense fog 1 lias extended from tlie West of England to beyond tbe eastern frontier of Belgium and lias spread death and terror.

Sixty-nine deaths have occurred in Belgium and are attributed to some mysterious quality in the fog.

The fog has now lifted in Belgium, and is disappearing in the Thames, where hundreds of vessels are beginning to move after being delayed for days.

Many people are ill in Belgium, and the medical sendees are being taxed to the utmost.

FOG CHARGED WITH GAS? BELIEF OF MEUSE VALLEY DWELLERS. Received December 8, 9.10 a.m. BRUSSELS, Dec. 7. Tlie poison fog has now vanished. The deaths number 69. Dwellers in the Meuse Valley are convinced that the fog was charged with a noxious gas of an unknown origin. SHIPS ABLE TO SAIL. HELD UP FOR DAYS. Received December 8, 9.20 a.m. LONDON, Dec. 7. The fog is lifting in the Thames this morning. Hundreds of vessels which have been held up for days have begun to move. MYSTERIOUS VISITATION. MANY THEORIES ADVANCED. LONDON, Dec. 6. On Friday Liege was fog-bound. Villagers were horror-stricken at the increasing number of deaths due to the invasion of what was apparently a poisonous gas. They recalled that the Germans stored vast quantities of ammunition in the Liege district during the war, and declared that the vapours were arising from this source. .The health authorities were non-committal pending the result of post-mortem examinations. Many of the sufferers, gasping in the last extremity, were taken to hospital, where scenes recalling the gas attacks of wartime . veie enacted. Tlie 'afflicted district is one of the healthiest in Belgium. the mortality in cuttle and sheep was also heavy. tt i j „ To-dav Professoral. B. S. Haldane, reader in brochemistry at Cambridge University, said he was of the opinion that the heaths were due apparently to an epidemic something resembling tlie “black death.” He does not think they were due to war gas, as they occurred in different villages where Hoods recently were experienced,, and possibly there was some connection between the two visitations. The chairman of the Liege Health Commission states that an official inquiry, which has not yet concluded, shows that the fatalities were due solely to the exceptional density ot the fog. A doctor declares that gas from factories was not responsible. Other practitioners consider that the aeatJis were due to the natural result of a suclden chilling of the atmosphere, combined with the unusually thick log affecting people already suffering from respiratory diseases. Either the heart or the lungs was involved in all cases. Autopsies probably will solve the pioEye witnesses say that the fog did not seem to be a mere winter treak, but'lay about in streaks. One moment a person might be walking in ordinary litait and then suddenly be up against •a dense fog wall in which phantom-like shapes were discernible. On entering

the fog breathing was difficult and the atmosphere pungent and clammy. The phenomenon is utterly unknown, and district doctors are completely puzzled. All medicos in the neighbourhood are meeting to-morrow to investigate the mystery. One theory is that the air is impregnated by some chemical dust which has united with the unusual amount of moisture, forming a toxic gas. SHORTAGE OF DOCTORS. No doctors are available for ordinary cases .of illness, and chemists’ staffs have been unable to cope with the rush of work. Among tlie lay theories is that the yellowness of the fog, as in the case of a yellow lain in Paris last week, was not due to dust from the Sahara, as was previously thought, but to an aerial fungoid growth, possibly deleterious to life. A chemical analysis showed that the “yellow snow” at Saint Moritz in the middle ’nineties was due to the presence of minute fungoids. A number of cattle have just died from an unknown disease on a farm owned by Mr J. Hodgson, of Grasniont, Yorkshire. The disease is her lieved to be caused by germs floating in the air. The farm lias been isolated by fog since December 4. Accounts from Belgium state that hundreds of patients are suffering from burning pains in the lungs and throat.. Cattle are asphyxiated, and hundreds of carcasses are lying in the fields. A sanitary commission has already begun inquiries. % London doctors are mystified by tlie reports of the poisonous fog. An official of the Tropical Diseases Hospital, referring to Professor Haldane’s suggestion, expresses the opinion that probably he did not mean the mediaeval bubonic plague, but tlie devastating influenza epidemic of a few years ago, which was called tlie “black death” owing to its calamitous effects in Britain and on the Continent. The deaths in the Meuse Valley might be a devastating form of influenza, which disease had many variations hitherto litre' fully understood. Local conditions may have created a new and hitherto unknown type of the disease. STEAMERS COLLIDE. A captive balloon sent up at Ivew recorded that the fog belt was 1000 feet thick and that it extended on huge patches as far as Berlin. The steamer Freya collided with the lonic anchored at North Fleet Hope and tore out a plate above her own waterline, necessitating clocking. The damage to the lonic has not been ascertained.

Motor-boats aro making profit supplying food to stationary vessels. The fog spoiled many football matches, spectators at Highbury vainly indicating the goal by lighting newspapers like flares. Tbe match was postponed after it had been partly played. There were several road accidents. A platelayer was killed laying fog signals on a railway line. There were many street accidents in Paris.