The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-03
Has a New Leader, Too, Who Doesn't Like Society Freaks
! S10,0O0,0O0 WARSHIP
The North Dakota to Rival the Dread nauqht-Dr. Koch and His Study of That Strange Disease,
 Sleeping Sickness.
BY sEWELL HAGGARD.

New York May 2.-New York society 1 the 400 which has grown to the 11o0-has
 a new leader who has taken the place of
 the late Ward McAllister. His name is
 Frederick Townsend Martin.
 Since the retirement of Mrs Astor,
 New York society has been without
 leader and last fall when the financial
 panic came along and made the million l aires blue it looked as if the winter was
 to be a pretty dull one socially. Then it
 was that MT. Martin was called upon to
 stir things up So well has he succeeded that he has been crowned leader. The new Ward McAllister is a brother of
 Bradley Martin How old? Well, he
 doesn't discuss that.
 MT. Martin, however, has some definite views about society He says, for in stance, that New York society has gone through it's formative stage and that 1t
 now resembles that of London, the old
 est and most absorbing society in the world. But society Is facing a grave
 peril, according to MT. Martin, who says:
 New York society is beset by new idea, which is as unsatisfactory as it is perilous. It develops a narrowness of thought and the most extreme boredom. Society is set-ridden. There are the Meadowbrook set, the Westchester set, the Lenox set, the Aiken set, the set that
 meets in Palm Beach, in Aiken and in Paris. These people are perfectly happy | with little, never changing circle of | friends. They say, We are perfectly happy We don't want any new friends. | We know all the people we care to. Why
 should we endure any invasion? Yet 1 they yawn their heads off.
 And MT. Martin has no patience with 1 the society freaks. In this language ne pays his respects to Harry Lehr:
 q believe that there are many mem | bers of society who are displeased with | the conditions generally. The oboquy of one mans behavior has even resulted in | the deterioration of Newport real estate. ] They resent the scrutiny of the world in | general. The solution of this is easy. 1 say, Behave yourselves. Eliminate spec tacular and ridiculous entertainments | Originality is perilous, but is not always 1 ludcrous."
 | MT Martin devotes a couple of hours
 day to business when he is in the city. l He goes each year to Paris in May for
 the season there, thence to London | where he also takes in the seasons gay i cities. On August he goes to the hunt ing lodge of his brother in Scotland
 where he remains until his return to New | York and the social happenings here. ] In February and March he visits Palm | Beach and keeps in touch with the doings 1 of a social nature in Americas Riviera 1 This itinerary does not include Newport, | and the social life there Mir Martin says | he is absolutely unacquainted with. His | cosmopolitan life, the fact that his ac- 1 quaintance list is as large in London and 1 in Paris as it is in New York, and the constant round of revels he follows from ] one city to another have given him op- portunity tc gain that experience of so- | cial complexities which seems to point
 him out as a very worthy successor to l the one time director of New Yorxs so- l ciety.
 1 Much has been written about sleeping ! sickness since the arrival here of Dr. Koch. the distinguished German scientist,
 who was sent by his government to South l Africa to investigate the disease. Origi- 1 nally trypanosomiasis or sleeping sick
 ness was confined to certaia districts of the west coast of South Africa. The dis
 ease was discovered by Colonel Bruce of the British army medical department. It
 is now known that it is caused by an | animal parasite called trypanosoma, which is carried by special kind of tsetse l fly. The natives are quite indifferent to 1 fly bites, and when once trypanosoma is 1 introduced into the districts where these flies abound they die like rotten sheep
 Europeans brush off the flies, and hence seldom fall a prey to the sleeping sick
 ness. The tsetse fly is a little bigger than the ordinary house fly. Its ravages have long been familiar to all who have to do with what is called the Tsetse Belt in
 South Africa, a region in which no horses or cattle can live.
 Prof. E. Roy Lankester contributes to The Quarterly an article which summa-
 rizes much of all that is known about this strange malady.
 "The signs that a patient has contracted the disease" he says. "are very obvious at an early stage. They are recognized by the black people, and the certainly fatal issue accepted with calm acquies- cence. The usually intelligent expression
 of the healthy negro is replaced by dull apatheic appearance; and there is vary ing amount of fever and headache. This
 may last for some weeks. but is followed more or less rapidly by a difficulty in l locomotion and speech trembling of the tongue and hands. There is increased fever and constant drowsiness, from which the patient is reused only to take food. At last-usually after some three or four months of illness-compete som
 nolence sets in no food is taken, the body
 becomes emaciated and Liberated, and the 1 victim dies in a state of coma. The 1 course of the disease, from the time when i the apathetic stage is first noticed, may l last from two to F months.'
 1 Dr. Koch worked for more than a year | in the infected districts, striving with
 the dogged determination of his race 10
 solve what has now come to be recog-
 nized as the most urgent of all the prob
 lems of tropical medicine.
 l The report of the German commission, l of which he was the head, includes the l ominous suggestion that tryanosomiasis, 1 or sleeping sickness as it is more com monly known, may be communicated like l other infectious diseases.
 1 That it can be so transmitted is as yet merely a suggestion of Dr. Koch The 1 Journal of Tropical Medicine says that l the suggestion, if confirmed, is one of the
 most sinister report. Should this prove | to be true" The Journal adds, "the out l look is dark indeed. for 1t Is difficult to 1 see what general measures can be sug-
 gested that offer any hope of preventing l the widespread of the disease"
 1 One suggestion advanced by Dr. Kocn | was the extermination of the crocodile. The tsetse fly, which carries the infection l to man, feeds on this saurian.
 l While everybody is talking navy it 1 may be interesting to recall that Uncle 1 Sam is now having built two of the most 1 powerful fighting machines in the world l the North Dakota and the Delaware. The l North Dakota when finished will repre- 1 sent an expenditure of $10000,0O0 Nearly 1 s1. 100000 of this will be spent for guns | alone There are 10 12-inch guns at S65.- l coo each, and IA 5-inch rifles at $10,000 each, in the main battery, besides 12 rapid 1 F.o er,,pc and minor Diecps fire one