FANATICAL SECT.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15979, 6 May 1924, Page 5

FANATICAL SECT.

RAVAGES OF DIPHTHERIA. MEDICAL AID SPURNED. (Australian end N.Z Cable 4.ssn.) NEW YORK, May 4. Disease has made terrible ravages among the members of a small religious sect residing at Lebanon, Pennsylvania. The tenets of the members of the sect provide for the cure of ail ailments through prayer. Seven have died in the past three weeks from diphtheria, No notice was taken of the first few deaths, but when the others occurred the neighbours sent for physicians. The latter, however, were not permitted to treat the side people. Onc family lost three of its members in a few days, but the surviving members only continued their prayers before the altar in their church and by the bedsides of the sick. The health authorities are unable under the law to force medical attention upon the afflicted persons. They have been compelled, therefore, t.o merely quarantine the houses where deaths have occurred. The sect, moreover, conceals information concerning the existence of disease, the disclosures' coming only after the sick have died.