Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-12
THE HOSPITAL SHIP
Flowing Along the Shores Of
Labrador.
SUFFERING RELIEVED
SICK CALLS MADE IN DOG
SLEDGES.
Agony Endured by the Injured and
Helpless and Among the
Poorest.

| sail from our northern Atlantic ports u
little steamer is rolling and tumollng
| through great seas and fields of ice Hoes
| And never castaWay sailor saw delivering
| ship approach with such prayers of grail
| tude as rise from mems lips when the nos
| pital shin Strathcona is sighted working
| her way along the terrible coasts Oh Lap
rador.
! Men and women and little chiidren-"hte'
| Indian and Eskimo-are strainlng their
| eyes seward while you read TINS ioohiis
| for the only help that ever comes 10 tieni
| in their solitudes where ice ana gaze locA
| them away from all their human KIND.
| Scattered along more than one tnousaho
| miles of coast fishing smacks cfo"ueo noe
| only with men, but with women VINO are
driven by need to fish for liethg, f nal fne
| little ship as the only place of refuge -.
| any who become i'll or MANNED in tie nara
| calling.
| The Land Of Pain.
| There is no spot on the globe where Ire
| is harder or serious accidents OF all hihus
| are more frequent than along that STORMY
| stretch of coast from St. Johns, Newtouno-
| land, to Cape Childey at the opening INTO
Hudson strait The intense cold, far beio"
| zero for the greater part OF the year.
| causes innumerable cases of frost bite
| that, with no surgical help, soon develop
| into gangrene. Every year there Is laIN
| of food and starvation weakens the people
! until they are easy prey to typhold, con-
| sumption and intestinal diseases Of almost
| all the painful kinds known to medical
| science. The only methods Tor obtaining
| food are seal hunting, whaling and fishing.
| Generally they are carried on in poor craft,
| and frightful injuries from broken bones
| to gunshot wounds are necessarily IRE
| quent For nowhere is the pursuit OF either
fr.al oh wi
| and peril.
| Yet, although the barren land is fnhabit-
| ed by nearly twelve thousand persons,
| while from twenty to twenty-five thousand
sail to it every year in June and July to
| fish for cod there was not single doctor
| to be found in all it's thousand miles until
| ten years ago, when the Royal National
Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen sent lit
| tie MISREPRESENTATION sailing vessel the
| Albert. there under DIR. Wilfred Grenfeu.
And it was the most fortunate thing that
ever happened to Labrador. For the mis-
| cry that DIR. Grenfell encountered, the
hopeless suffering he found, so cried out to
| him that he decided then and there to de-
vote his life to bringing what alienation
he could to the unhappy souls that were
imprisoned in ice for half the year. and
| cursed with privation and sickness always.
| Month after month the little Albert
worked her way through ice and snow ana
| gale through hundreds of miles of unchart-
| ed and unlighted waters. over reefs pound
might succor. When her sail was seen,
men came in skin kayaks, in birch canoes,
| in all sorts of craft crazy or stanch, pear
| ing their sick and wounded to the visitors.
Too often the visitors were too late to do
! more than ease the dying moments of some
poor wretch. They found whole settlements
| that had been wiped out by diphtheria. In
one place they saw the rude graves. Scooped
| into the hard Laurentian rocks, of twenty
| nine persons who had died absolutely
without any attempt at saving them,
| Wounds, no matter how friShtful, were
| treated by squirting tobacco juice into
| them and binding tightly with an old rag.
| But even tobacco and rags were wanting
| in MANY places for the Albert found set
| Elements where the children Were almost
naked. and had to live in the very back Of
| the novels to escape freezing to death.
A Frightful Story.
| They found one man whose little one had
frozen both her feet. There was nothing
in the whole settlement with which to help
her. and before long both feet began to
gangrene. And when the Albert returned
to st. Johns she carried back the terrible
story of how the unhappy father had been
! forced at last, being in utter despair. and
| knowing that 1t was the only hope of saw
| ing the child from death of torture. to
| take a Ratchet and cut off both the little
| ones feet.
with such knowledge as this to sustain
| him Dr. Grenfell and his band of doctors
| and nurses-Drs. a. O. Bovardt and Eliot
| Curwen and the Misses Cecilia Williams
| and Ada Carwardine-fough their way
| through the long seasons on the coast, and
| then. on their brief visits to cviliza ton
fought to arouse them to help them in their
efforts Bit by bit they obtained assist
| ance First they got rowboat. Then
somebody else helped them to buy a steam
| launch. Finally another sailing vessel was
added to their tiny fleet. But still they
| knew that all this was but a scratching It
mon in Of mis-
| they fought on until now they have the
| little but beautifully equipped stea mship
| strathcona. given largely through the eff
| forts of Lord Strathcona. while two hos
! nitals are established on the coast and one
| Is omen in northern Newfoundland where
| the conditions of life almost as hard
The strathcona is a steel steamer of
| eighty-four tons. SO built that she can haul
| her propeller up and proceed with sail
| alone Her hospital is amidships. and it is
| fitted with electric light and a fine x-ray
Quiet It is used almost constantly In her
| first year more than one thousand persons
| sought help from her; and each hospital
| since then has treated more than that num-
| her each year. making a total of more than
| three thousand, who, in the old days. had
| No recourse except to lie in their rude sur
! roundings and go through torment until
| they died.
Sick Calls by Dog Sledge.
! Yet. still the service can only reach a
| percentage of those who need it. For
| through the winter months even the brave
hearts on the Ftrathcona cannot force her
| through the ice that girdles the coasts as
with an iron ring Then the doctors must
| sally out in dog sledges to pay their sick
| calls, and often they go for hundred
| miles to find their patient What such med
| zeal practice means is told we'll by the
| simple report Of one of the doctors at the
| hospital Mr.. Simpson. He says:
"a man from Ha-Ha arrived, and re-
| auested me to 60 lat once to attend his
! vine. 1t was exceedingly cold, with a dead
| head wind but on we went, over hill and
| dale. across frozen ponds and lakes and
| bavs along frozen brooks and streams, I'M
| in al last Pistolet bay was reached Now
| came our hardest work. A light drift of
snow was blowing up with the wind, and
| once ont on the bay no sheltering land was
| near More than once we had to warn
| each other of small patches of frost bite
on nose. ears and cheek. Vigorous treat
| ment. however, soon restored the circula-
| ton. The poor dogs had hard work against
| the cutting wind, but eventually we ar
| rived safely at our destination and al
| though our patient had been twelve hours
| in distress. and her friends in much anxiety
| we were able very quickly to relieve her
and set at rest the fears entertained for her