REIGN OF TERROR LIFTS

Taranaki Daily News, 8 December 1930, Page 7

REIGN OF TERROR LIFTS

SCENE REMINISCENT OF WAR VICTIMS -IN PRIME. OF LIFE HEART AND LUNGS SUFFER Rec. 5.5 p.m. .• London, Dpc. 6. The mysterious mist of death which has hung over the countryside in pungent yellow patches for three days ha? apparently begun' to lift and the reign of terror, unequalled since th? war, is somewhat abating., Doctors/.are. still very busy in the stricken districts attending hundreds of patients suffering from burning pains in the lungs andthroat. .Cattle were asphyxiated as well as hqmans, and hundreds of carcases are lying in the fields. Professor J. B. S. Haldane is of opinion that the death? are due .to an epidemic something resembling the ‘black •death.” He does not think they are.due to war gas as they occurred in different villages where floods were recently experienced, and that possibly there i? a ( connection therewith. The Belgian Health Minister states that doctors believe the deaths are due . to the intensely cold wet fog and not to poison gas, and has ordered a strict inquiry. ( ' Eye-witnesses say the fog does not seem to be a mere winter freak but lies about in streaks. One moment a person may be walking in ordinary daylight and then suddenly be up.against a dense fog wall in which phantbinlike shapes are discernible. On entering the fog breathing is difficult. The atmosphere is pungent and clammy. ; / The, phenomenon is utterly .unknown and the district doctors are completely puzzled, especially by the deaths apparently due tq. congestion. AJI medicos in the neighbourhood'are to meet tomorrow to investigate the mystery; One. theory is that th? air is impregnated' with some > chemical dust united with the unusual mpistufe, forming a to£ic WAR GAS ATTACKS RECALLED. Many sufferers gasping in the last extremity have been taken to hospital, the scenes recalling Jhe gas attacks in war time. « ‘ , • • ’ ? The afflicted district is one of the ' healthiest in Belgium. Most of, the * lctims are men and women in the prime of life. ' . London doctors, are mystified by the reports of the poisonous fog. An official of the Tropical Diseases Hospital, referring to Professor*'Haldane’s “'Black Death” suggestion, expressed, the opinion that he probably did not mean the mediaeval bubonic plague but the devastating influenza epidemic of a "few years ago which had been called “black death” owing to it’s calamitous effects in Britain and on the Continent. The ■, deaths might be caused by a, devastating form of influenza, which disease had many variations hitherto not fully understopd. Local conditions may have created a new and hitherto unknown type of the disease. A Madrid, Spain, message hays the countryside at Salinas, near Huelva, was painted a vivid red by tinted rain ; during a thunderstorm. d . The chairman of the Liege Health Commission states that the official inquiry, which has not* yet concluded, shows that the fatalities were solely due to the exceptional density of the fog. ' ■-.■/ ' ' ~ S 1 A doctor declares that gas frbin the factories was not responsible. Other practitioners consider that the deaths were due to the natural result of the sudden chilling of the atmosphere, combined with the 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 tlie fog from the death zone. No doctors are available . for ordinary cases of illness and chemists’ staffs have t been unable to cope with, the rush of ' /work. ,

Among the lay theories is that the yellownessfi of the fog is due to tho same cause rs the yellowness of rain in Paris in thd past wtek—not from the but an aerial fungoid growth, potsibly deleterious to life. A chemical antMik'showid that yellow snow at Saint Aloritz in. the middle nineties was due to the presence of minqte fungoids. f A number of cattle has just died from an* unknown disease on the farm of Mr. •J Hodgson, Grosmont, Yorkshire. The disease is believed to be due to germs floating in the air. The farm has been isolated by fog «ince December 4.