HAPPY TO DIE

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3247, 18 January 1926, Page 7

HAPPY TO DIE

FORMER WAIF’S SACRIFICE, FACING PAINFUL DEATH More than thirty years ago a lad living the life of a waif was reclaimed from the London streets. Through the interest of a wealthy man he was trained for the China mission field, Where he becamq one of the most valuable and most loved of the little band of self-sacrificing -men and women caring for the bodies and souls of the native population. To-Jay, a martyr to a stem sense of duty, he is dying a painful death at Baltimore, U.S.A,

Working la the mission field of China during some of the worst epidemics, Drf C. H. Barlow found that a disease closely akin to cholera, but many times more deadly, was ca|rying oft the population by hundreds of thousands.

Believing that the only means of combating the ecourge was through research Into the origin of the germ, he acked permission of the Chinese authorities to take some of the baccllll out of the country. The request was refused. Dr. Barlow then decided that it was his duty to disobey the ban in the only way open to him, a way that meant certain death by the scourge that had provoked in others the sufferings that had moved his hearty to pity. Inoculating himself with the germs he started for Baltimore, where, at the Johns Hopkins Clinic there is a laboratory for the study of this disease.

Here he p.-aced himself unreservedly in the hands of vise research atuients so that they might study, at first hand the development of the dread complaint He assisted with careful notes of hia own case, written up often when he was in intense pain and chewing signs cf the wasting process that was going on. His o 'i* consolation through the long hours of agony was the thought that his death might mean life to millions, and, thanks to the valuable data he was able to provide through his act of self-sacrifice, his comrades in the research work have now found means of checking the progress of a scourge that for hundreds of years has dealt death wholesale to the teeming population of China. “I am happy to die,” he said, “with the feeling that! I have done something to repay the act of kindness that gave me my chance of becoming a useful citizen of the world, instead of growing to manhood in a London slum. f % “Looking back on my life since that chance came my way, I have no regrets for what has happened. Had I my life to live over again, I should make the same cho'ce, because I feel that I was taken out of the mire in order that I might help others more miserable than myself. "My sole hope now is that I may live Just long enough to be certain beyond doubt that what I have done haq Indeed resulted in the triumph of science over this appalling scourge.”

Associated with Dr. Barlow in his labours in China was Nurse Elsie Burrell, who also had come from England. Working among the patients in the mission station, Miss Burrell contracted the complaint,/and Dr. Barlow, who had learned to loye his fel-low-worker, found all his skill unavailing to save her from death. It was then that he decided to devote what life remained to him to. fighting the scourge, and when the woman he loved was laid to rest he deliberately carried out the plan that now leaves him a thin, emaciated figure after four months of voluntary subjection to the ravages of the disease germs. "The end cannot be far off now," h e said before relapsing into the unconsciousness ihat comes at stages of the disease, "and I try not to mind the pain. When I find it hard I thin.i of the sufferings of th e others I have seen die by this scourge, and try to think that my insignificant sufferings will put un end for over to the greater sufferings of the thousands who have no comfort while they are racked by £b* diaeoaV*