PLAGUE GERMS IN BOMBS.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17746, 25 June 1929, Page 9

PLAGUE GERMS IN BOMBS.

SURGEON REVEALS WAR SECRET.

Guest of honour at a dinner given by the Authors’ Club in Whitehall Court, London, Sir Berkeley Moymban, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, made the exlraordinat y allegation in his speech that plague bacilli were recovered from German bombs during the war. “We heard in 191 G,” he related, “that the Germans were going to use plague as a lethal weapon, and we actually recovered plague bacilli from bombs dropped over the Fifth Army. Plague is spread by the parasite, the flea on the body of rats. So we encouraged cats and dogs, owls weic prot’etced, and gamekeepers were asked to keep down the rats, so prevent the spread of plague. Sir Berkeley's assertion was not endorsed by a high official in the Army Medical Service. “The suggestion, "he said, "that plague bacilli can he carried in bombs is erroneous, because the explosion of the bomb would make the bacilli ineffective.” Sir Berkeley Moynihan, who was chairman of the Council of Consultants attached to the British Army, and chairman of the Medical Advisory Board, stood by his guns, however, and repeated his original charge that plague bombs were dropped by the Germans on the British forces. “As I stated at the dinner," he remarked In an interview, “it was rumoured in the January of 1916, that the Germans were going to use plague bacilli as a lethal weapon against us, and we were constantl7“on the look-out after that time in case the rumour proved to be true. The first, and so far as I know the only instance of this being i actually done was in February, 1918, when bombs were dropped from aero- J planes in the area occupied by the Fifth Army—the army, by the way, which had to face the German onslaught a few weeks later. The bacillus was discovered by the ordinary method known to all medical mem—that is, If It Is placed on good soil and if the germ Is thcro it will grow. It grew in this case, and at once we took nctive steps to combat the possible spread of the disease among the troops."