THE PLAGUE AT VIENNA.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 2886, 10 December 1898, Page 3

THE PLAGUE AT VIENNA.

After reading of the outbreak of plagup at Vienna, the first feeling m one's mind is that of wonder that it did not occur sooner. For years experiments with the plague germ have been going on at the General Hospital m that city, the bacillus having been m the first place sent from Japan by a Japanese scientist, its discoverer, for six years assistant to the celebrated Dr Koch. The " vile bodies " on which the experiments were made were those of living animals, into which the plague germ was injected. They were kept m a shed m a yard at the Hospital, "not even under lock and key," and the man, John Barch, who looked after them was the first victim of the outbreak. He had, it is snid, so accustomed himself to dangpr that he did not even wash his h&nds aftgrhe had elpaned the shed or fed the animals. " It was his duty to take them to the doctors, and afterwards back to the shod. He would then sit down with his wife, who brought his dinner m a little basket, and enjoy his meals also without washing his hands." He began to feel unwell on $he Sunday , and was dead on the following Tuesday, the course of the disease being so rapid that the putward symptoms had no time to appear. Two days later thd two nurses who had attended him fell ill. Then Dr Muller, who had studied the plague with three others m Bombay, and had survived there all its perils, became infected. He and' the two nurses, attended by a young docter named Poeeh, and three sisters oi charity, were established m a separate portion of the Hospital for infectious diseases. No one else was allowed inside, not even another doctor. Whenever Dr Poech wanted anything he wrote ip on paper and fastened the slip to the window-pane, where it was read by a doctor who was always waiting outside. Food for the prisoners was placed on the broad window-sill by nuns, and not until they had gone did the nuns inside take the food m. Dr Muller and one of the nurses received, the last sacrament two days and a half after they were attacked. The nurse was then dying, and quite hnconßcious, but the doctor, who, as we heard, recorded his symptoms right up to the end, knew what was passing around him. Later on, ,the brave young Dr Poech died, a victim to self-sacrificing heroism. It can hardly be wondered at that these deaths from plague created an uneasy feeling m London and some of the great Continental cities, on account of the plague bacilli which it was known almost all the great bacteriologists had among their collections of germ 8. And people were not altogether satisfied when they were assured that even if the tubes containI ing these deadly bacilli were accidentally, broken no harm would follow, because the bacillus required certain surroundings m the absence of which it died. . . " The tallest man m his army," who accompanied the German Emperor on bis visit to the East, is a Grenadier named Chiemke, who is nearly 6ft lOin m his stockings. | The Australian-born nephews of one of England's moat distinguished statesmen are seldom out of N.S.W gaols. Their chief-occupations, when at liberty, are avoiding the police and not avoiding sto^k stealing. A plot of ground comprising five acres m the Royal Park, Melbourne, has recently, with a view of encouraging the silk industry, been planted by the Victorian Government with white mulberry trees.