A MYSTERY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 8 December 1930, Page 7

A MYSTERY

DEATHS IN BELGIUM ATTRIBUTED TO POISON GAS *—l SCENES IN HOSPITAL (United Preßß Association—By Electrio Telegraph—Copyright) ANTWERP, sth December. Mysterious deaths occurring in the densely fog>-enwrajpped Meuse Valley {ire attributed to asphyxiation from fog. Fourteen deaths have occurred in Kngis in the past twenty-four hours lifter a three days' fog. The Health Committee has been sent to investigate 34 deaths, apparently from the same cause, reported in the Liege district. Many people have been taken to hospital.

A number of cattle have died, and farmers are driving animals into their kitchens to escape from the fog. LIEGE, sth December.

Liege is fog-bound. Villagers ara horror-stricken at the increasing number of deaths due to the invasion of what is apparently a poisonous gas. They recall that the Germans stored vast quantities of ammunition in the Liege district during the war, and the peasants declare that the vapours are arising from this source. 'The health authorities are 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 are recalled. The afflicted district is one of the healthiest in Belgium, as most of (he victims are men and women in the prime of life. The mortality in cattle and sheep is also heavy.

NOT POISON GAS

LONDON. 6th December

Professor J. B. S. Haldane is of the opinion that the deaths are apparently due to an epidemic, something resembling the Black Death. Ee does not think that they are due to war gas, as t-iey occurred in different villages where floods were recently experienced, and possibly there is a connection therewith. The 'Brussels Health Minister states that doctors believe that the deaths are due to intensely cold and wet fog, not poison gas, and he has ordered a strict inquiry.

DEATHS DUE TO FOG

LONDON, 6th December. The chairman of the Liege Health Commission states that an official inquiry, which has not yet. concluded, shows that the Meuse Valley fatalities were solely due to the exceptional density of the fog. A doctor declares tlmt gas from factories was not responsible. Other practitioners consider that the deaths were due to the natural result of a sudden chilling of the atmosphere combined with unusually thick fog affecting people already suffering from respiratory diseases, since either the heart or the lungs were involved in all cases. Autopsies will probably solve the problem. Forty are still dangerously ill, but the panic is subsiding with the disappearance of the fog from the death zone. No doctors are available for ordinary cases of illness and chemists' staffs have been unable to cope with the rush of work. Among lav theories is that.the yellowness of the fog is due to the same cause as the yellowness of rain in Paris last week, namely, not dust fromj the Sahara but aerial fungoid growth possibly deleterious .to life.. Chemical analysis showed that* yellow- snow at Saint Moritz in the 1 middle of the 'nineties was due to the presence of minute fungoid. A number of cattle have just died from an unknown disease on the 'farm of J. Hodgson, in Yorkshire. The disease is believed to be due to germs floating in the air. The farm has be'en isolated by fog since 4th December.