WHEN THE “FLU” CAME.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16304, 3 December 1918, Page 4

WHEN THE “FLU” CAME.

THE EPIDEMIC AT TRENTHAM. INCIDENTS IN CAMP. (By Private Putiki. in the Wanganui Chronicle.) The epidemic came mysteriously and suddenly to Trentham. It came in the flush of spring when the hills were yellow-mantled with the broom flower. It was a strange visitation that carried disaster in its train, and the story of its combatting is replete with incidents. My personal experience was a strange feeling of lassitude, a hurried appearance before one of the medical officers, a temperature reading of 104 degrees point something, and an immediate consignment to a temporary hospital. Of the next four days I have but a hazy recollection, for that is the time when one is somewhere down on the border of Sbadovviand and in casual waking moments quite indifferent to every-day events. At Trentham there is hospital accommodation for roughly 250 men, and the military authorities at the height of the epidemic were confronted with the problem of caring for 1500 invalids, many of whom were in a serious stale. The military machine in its medical branches may be slow m its workings, but there is no doubt in regard to thoroughness when a course of action is defined Firstly, the camp was isolated and ingress and egress were in the main barred. Temporary hospital huts were speedily filled with an unending flow of sick men, and' as the demand tor extra accommodation grew more lines wore cleared, and further hospital accommodation was arranged. At the height of the epidemic motor ambulances ran a regular day and night service, and it was not an uncommon sight to see men fall in the roadway while trying to roach the medical beadquarters to report themselves. So g. eat was the strain in combating the epidemic that all the forces of the camp were thrown into the fray to help a sadly overburdened medical division who, as the days wont on, also contributed its quota to the stricken. During the crisis the situation was extremely trying, but in the end n. policy of segregation was effective, the epidemic, as far as the camp was concerned, waned, and the affairs of Trentl.am’s self-contained population gradually reached a more or less normal position.

A week in a hospital lint was an unenviable experience. In many cases the trained medical orderlies became victims of the “flu” fiend, and the task of looking after a complement of 24 patients was thrust upon inexperienced men of outside units. Some of them rase heroically to the occasion, and filled an arduous and unsought position with a degree of ability that was surprising in the. extreme. Personally, I will always have warm regard for a Timaru waterside worker, rough in manner but cheerful in temperament, who devotedly nursed our sick group of two dozen. In stockinged feet lie maintained a ceaseless all-night vigil, whispering a few words of comfort to a suffering inmate, tucking blankets around restless sufferers, and obeying insistent calls through the long night hours for a drink of water. But there was work for many hands, and it must he recorded that patients in the improvement stage were always ready to assist helpless comrades. It was not an easy matter when one’s gait was painfully unsteady to help with a neighbour’s morning ablutions, or to steer a zigzag course from a nearby cookhouse with a brimming dish of arrowroot, simple things in their way, but quite feats of endurance in early convalescent stages. Likewise when sufferers fell out of bed with a hard and heavy thud willing if weak hands were instantly proffered for assistance. A very careful tri-daily temperature check was made of the patients under supervision of a doctor and nurse, who made periodical visiting rounds, and soldiers with high readings—a bad sign —were removed to the already overtaxed main hospital. At 105 degrees the average sufferer was in the delirium stage, and day and night a watch was kept over them, for “there were many possibilities. Occasionally a delirious soldier did affect temporary “absence without leave.” One man, clad only in a. shirt, and carrying a hand-bag, got as far its the main gates late one night and casually remarked to the guard there that he was on route to Frankton Junction. Another similarly clad, but minus a hand-bag, announced that he was named “Desert Gold,” and led a long chase around the neighbouring racecourse in the small hours of a cold morning until he was gathered back to the fold. Personally I had' a very full experience of delirious neighbours. One man, a railway engine driver in civil life, reached incessantly for the handle of an imaginary whistle, and inquired with asperity, “How the can we steam with this coal?” Others were profane, and painfully so. My left-hand neighbour one night went over the 105 mark and signalised the occasion by frequent repetition of “The Lord’s Prayer” and the singing of an indecent parody having pointed reference to two much-travel led Now Zealand politicians. Ho finally appointed me as one of his twelve apostles and greeted me at intervals as “Brother John.”

Another patient, a pleasant mannered chaplain in ordinary times, claimed abnormal pugilistic ability, and on three consecutive mornings heralded the appearance of the white-coated medical officer with the remark: “No chops today, butcher!” There was a plentitude of incidents. One of the most entertaining patients was a soldier who courteously asked for a writing pad one morning and wrote what purported to he a telegram of protest to the “Inspector of Police at Packakariki,” and signed it “Lord Tokomaru,” a souvenir which the medical staff promised to send, but no . doubt will retain as a memento of the “flu.” On another occasion he recited without break the trials and tribulations which beset the Shakespcrian heroine Lucrece, and followed it with Gordon’s “Sick Stockrider,” Kipling’s “Mandalay,” and a few pithy extracts from Wilde’s “Lady Windemere’s Fan.” He was discoursing wildly on the respective literary merits of Dickens and Kola, when one unappreciative member of the compulsory audience at the far end of the ward broke in with an indignant request for undisturbed repose, and solicitations anent the final prospects of salvation of the unconscious literary entertainer. One’s brain is not retentive in certain stages of the “flu” epidemic, and overnight incidents were frequently

buried in oblivion. But there were | many tragic items and portents. When men with laboured breathing clutched convulsively at their blankets it was accepted as a had sign. A sad-faced little woman sat for several nights at the bedside of her stricken husband until he quietly crossed the borders of Sliadowland. On another occasion four women arrived at Trentham in response to an urgent summons, only to learn that overnight each had become a widow. It was at this stage the “flu” with its pneumonic complications, was taking heavy toll. One of the most pathetic cases was a sorely stricken soldier who nightly got out of his bed and said, “My station, I think!” “No, the next,” would reply one of the sisters to humour him, and quietly he would lie down again. During tho week his distorted brain carried him in stages right up the Main Trunk line. “My station,” ho would repeat, and Marton gave place to Taihapo, and Taikape in turn to Tauraarunui. Tho sick man’s thoughts were of Auckland, where a wife and two little children prayed for him. One night, as his strength was ebbing, he sat up and said, “I’ll be there in the morning.” And next day, when the sun was slowly rising over the eastern hills the weary man quietly came to tho end of his earthly journey. At Trentham tho “flu” ran its full course, and tho great majority of tho 1500 sufferers wore nursed back to health through all the slow stages of convalescence. The psychological aspect was particularly interesting. Some of the sufferers made no fight to maintain tho degree of vitality so necessary for recovery, while others showed a tenacious hold of life which amazed tho medical staff'. It got on one’s nerves to hear a lightly suffering soldier wail continuously, “I’m going to die,” but ; this class of patient received no sympathy when around were very sorely smitten soldiers, who fought their fight beroicallv and quietly. At one stage ■ at Trentham there was an impression that men addicted to alcohol had tho least prospects of recovering, but many : a good man “went” out who could have worn the white flower of a liquorless life. The “flu” was quite impartial in its ravages.