Elmore County Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1910-1915, 1915-05-29
TAKES TOLL.
American Doctors In Serbia
Stricken by Scourge.
Only Austrian officers In Prison Seem
Able to Revel Amid Record.
Breaking Epldemlc-Thou.
sands of Victims.

Nish. Serbia.-Serbia at this time
is the most melancholy figure in the
war and the most heroic. AS one
comes up from Saloniki, the one port
through which outside aid for Serbia
can enter, rumors rife In Athens are
verified at Ghevgheli, the first frontier
town. The most violent epidemic of
typhus in history Is taking Its toll
OF a country that already has suffered
too much. Exactly one-half the staff
Of the American hospital at Ghevgheli
was found to be suffering from the fe-
yer. And no wonder. A mission Of
four doctors and eight nurses under
DR.. e. F. Butler found on Its arrival
more than thousand wounded in the
old tobacco factory at that place, and
the number has since increased to
$500. with no running water, and any
water at all five blocks away. 1t is
impossible to convey either to Ameri-
cans or to those familiar with Red
Cross work on the western front, any
idea Of what besieges Serbia.
"Oh, yes," said one CHEEKY little
American nurse from Kansas City,
we are used to having our wounded
arrive and to find maggots when We
open the temporary dressings. We
are used to horror after horror Blu;
with surgery we can do something
With typhus 1t Is different. 1t is 8
lice given disease and there are al
ways lice where there Is crowding and
the primitive notions of sanitation
that prevail in Serbia. In a crowded
hospital like this there is no human
way of fighting it, no way to segre-
gate"
In the hospital the men lay close
together on the bare floor or on straw
stuffed mattresses. AS any doctor
knows, straw mattresses are Elysian
fields for insects.
At Uskub. where two Of Lady Pa
gets mission have died of typhus, af-
fairs were found to be no better.
There reports of conditions farther
north began to come through. In Val
evo aone there are nearly 1000 cases
If typhus. More than forty Serbian
doctors have succumbed in the last
wo months and nobody has yet COM
)uted the number Of patients who
lave died.
In Nish, at the second reserve
amp for Austrian prisoners, men have
'een dying like flies, and the last OF
he Austrian doctors was stricken
hree days ago. Needless to say, in
. country overwhelmed with its own
its prisoners fare no better
han the rest.
Only the Austrian officers seem to
n1oy any comfort. That they are not
together miserable is evidenced by
he fact that on the day Sir Thomas
Upton and group of friends went
ut to visit the interned officers only
few Of them were up, although 1t
7as three o'clock In the afternoon.
he Serbian colonel in command Of
he quarters where a635 officers are pris.
ners explained indulgently that the
revious night had been what you
'nglish call an evening of it," As
hree of the officers were from the
pera company at Budapest and four
'ere from the Bohemian opera COM
any at Prague, there had been con-
ert, and the three francs daily allow
nee given the prisoners had been
lade to yield wine enough to account
'r the next days late hours. With
le common soldiers it is different.
Nish itself, as even the most patri-
tic Serb will tell you, is a wretchedly
Irty town. In normal times it's popu.
tion is 10000. Now it has more
ian 100000. Refugees sleep in the
reefs. A bed in the worst hotel in
'wn Is likely to be yours only as the
'oils Of war after you have called in
le ministry of foreign affairs and ex-
'ess before the hotel keeper an abso-
tie indifference as to price. What
~ get for your trouble is often a
'om on the courtyard, and likely as
1t the court is used by the cook, who
iys his lambs bleating and brings
EN- alive from the market in the