GERM-LADEN AIR BOMBS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue XLIX, 6 January 1916, Page 3

GERM-LADEN AIR BOMBS

STRANGE MORTALITY AMONG ZEPPELIN VICTIMS. (By the "T>aily MailV Medical Correspondent.) LONDON, Nov. 19. The extraordinarily high proportion of deaths following injuries caused by Zeppelin bombs has led to a strong suspicion among surgeons who have treated 1 these cases that the. bombs have bpen impregnated with deadly disease germs. : -The evidence in favour of the bombs having been so treated was reviewed yesterday by one of the surgeons of a hospital in the "London area to which some 40 seriously injured victims of the last raid were admitted for treatment. "In the first place," the surgeon stated, "the death-rate among these cases has been at least five times as high as 9lie would expect in patients wounded /Ccjually severely, eitr.er in battle or acci--dentally in civil life. In practically all "£he cases a germ causing rapidly fatal gangrene, very rarely met with in ordinary hospital practice, has been discovered by the hospital bacteriologists. k j"Patients -who received the best treatment afforded -by a modern hospital within ten minutes of being injured suffered a. much higher death-rate than soldiers at the front who, after receiving wounds 'outwardly of the same degree of severity. jhave had to wait 24 hours or more before 'being treated.

"Inquiries are bein.or made to determine whether the Italian bacteriologists Have found the. same germ in the wound? of those injured 'in the recent raid on Verona. If this very rare gangrene-caus-insr germ has been found there also, it will be. pretty strong evidence that the .bomb's have been deliberately impregnated with one of the mort deadly varieties of disease germs known."