Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-06-22

Inc DullulnG is the usual long story
Russian barracks, the rooms opening
ON each side of a central hallway It
contains the doctors quarters, staff
dining rooms, offices, and bacteriologi-
| cal laboratory. 1t stands about a
hundred and fifty yards from the
plague hospital.
DIR. Haffkine had been working i'll
| the laoratory apd showed Me a slide
Of the involution forms of plague
bacilh. The laboratory is temper
airy one, chiefly intended for i'm
mediate needs. Dr. Haffkine regret
ted that the facilities were not such as
would enable him to make vaccine
from the Identical germs of the local
disease, from which he thought there
might be the possibility of 81 eater eff
fectiveness than from imported vac
cine and serum.
Getting Into the Hospital Armor.
We began to prepare for going into
the hospital, an extensive perform
ance. The doctor wears at all times
pair of high rubber boots and a
white apron-like coat to his knees.
He puts on now q small jacket over
this for warmth, and over the whole a
heavy, thickly woven white coat with
a hood to it,
Meanwhile a mask, a pad of gauze
with strings attached. was being tied
over the lower part of my face by one
of the nurses. Another was muffing
DR.. Haffkine. while third was gay1y
chattering as she prepared herself to
go along with us. 1t is delightful to
see the splendid Russian women-a
white coat and a hood on 4 woman
does not look half so CHASTITY as on a
man-lending touch of feminine
sympathy and tenderness, without a
thought of fear, to an atmosphere
which rs naturally horrifying and re-
pulsivc. 1t softens the grimness of
the thing immeasurably Their pres
ence brings humanity in on the scene
where suffering beings in the hands of
men alone tend to become but numbers,
and deaths are but statistics.
The doctor does not don one him
self but he has me step into a heavy
white canvas union suit into which |
| am fastened up the back. the trousers
| tied tightly round my ankles and The
| sleeves round the wrists over this
| comes white coat; hat ties down
| over the ears, and a hood goes
oyer the hat. Ones feet step into
heavy. high rubber shoes: and ones
| anti plague outfit is then complete.
But it is no easy matter breathing
| through the sieve saturated with car
Dole solution, though this, we know,
| is the only certain method of warding
of the bacilli. by destroying them be-
lore they enter mouth or nostrils.
The little nurse is still talking
briskly behind her muflling mask az
we three walk along the road to the
hospital. My host, the doctor, is a
| large, genial young man. looking es-
| pecially so in the rotund bulkiness of
his costume. Visiting the plague
hospital is nothing to him. He has
seen over six hundred patients die in
1t since he took charge and is to see
many more There is the scientific
spirit in him, little thought of per-
sonal danger in the work, only keen
| interest in the bacillus and its peculiar
nature. All the precautionary meas
ures. washing hands at every turn.
innumerable changes of clothes. etc.
| new to the outsider, have become me
chanical habits that hardly require
thought from him. This uneoncern
go NotiSSi' pll tiIt part Oh DDID
| the doctor and the happy little nurse
| tripping along by our side, is a de-
| lightful surprise.
The plague hospital, another vast
barracks, is enclosed by a board fence.
Inc nrst thing we see on entering is
porcelain lined bath tub. where the at.
tehdants battle after finishing their
term oil duty. The next room is the
dlslntecting room, where the clothes
are sprayed and changed. Across the
nan Is an office. The hallway runs
down the centre with about seven add
dltionai rooms opening on either side.
wherein the sick are lying. Built in
the walls along the hallway are big
cylinder Russian stoves which heat
both the hall AND the sick room on the
other side of the wall. One of the
Chiense attendants is stocking the
| fires, which are fed from the hall side.
and the whole place is thoroughly
warm and comfortable.
The doctor first led into the ward
| for Europeans. Most of those who
have died-forty- in all in Hardin
died here. But there is none at
the time of my visit.
The floors of the hospital are swim
ming in disinfectant, and now and
then as we stand inside the room we
hear in the hallway the splash of the
heavy feet of the "sanitars" into large
tubs of disinfecant where they wash
off their boots after coming out of the
sick rooms.
The doctor opens the door of room
across the hall where there are seven
Chinese victims, and tells us to STAY at
the threshold. But the little nurse
walks in and stands alongside one Of