The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-05-23
TYPHUS PLAGUE
RAVAGES SERBIA
In One Town Of 5000 People,
There Are Now 1000 Cases
Among Those Who
Still Live.
ARE DYING LIKE FLIES
Impossible to Give the Victims De.
cent Burial When Death List
Was Over One Hundred
Per Day.
by Henry Wood, United Press Staf
Cores pOndent.1

by Henry Wood, United Press stan
Correspondent
NISCH, Serbia. May 2. (By mail to
New York. )-Valievo is the black hole
Of the terrible typhus plague ravasing
Serbia. There were 5000 men, women
and children in the town when the
epidemic began, wiping out wholo
families. The victims are dying like
flies-so rapidly that the town author
tiles have lost count. At least four
thousand of those still surviving ara
stricken with the disease and ara
battling for their lives.
DR.. B. Mac Cookingham, Of Red
Hook, Duchess county, N. Y, pictured
conditions in the Serbian typhus cen
ter to me today. He had just arrived
from VaIievo where he spent fo1r
months fighting the plague.
, THE only way you can get an id,a
Of the terrible conditions at the town
! is by reading accounts of some of the
/ he said. Dr. Mao Buckingham him
of its worst forms, the "recurrans"
and the "exanthamaticus."
! DR.. Albert B. Cooks, former police
surgeon Of Brooklyn, N. Y, and DR..
Mac Cookingham's only English speak
ing companion in the BLACK hole" OF
| valievo, died Of it.
! During the first few months they
made some effort to give the victims
decent BURIAL said DR.. Mac Cook.
ingham. THAT was when the deaths
were running only so to rs day.
Later, when deaths reached $50 a
day and when a large part of the
population was down with the fever
that was out of the question. They
simply stacked the bodies together
like logs and hauled them away.
| THE dead wagon made its rounds as
often as possible. Bodies were just
tossed in and the grim callers passed
on to the next house. When the waS.
on was full It started for the outskirts
of the town. 1 have seen it pass
!! through the streets with head or two
hanging out behind and arms and legs
extended over the sides. The bodies
were dumped into a hole outside the
| city limits and the whole mess hastily
covered with earth. Then the wagon
and the over-worked horse began the
rounds again.
| The misery and the suffering IN
valievo are indescribable. When DR..
Cooke and I arrived there in January.
the town was filed with hundreds OF
wounded from the last great battle
with the Austrians, centering near
there.
There were no hospitals. The
wounded had been piled on racks in a
big warehouse $50 to q row. They
were without bedding and when we
arrived there was only one Serbian
doctor in charge Of them all. We
were given 400 men to attend. Later
Holland Red Cross unit arrived
I'm the midst of these terrible con.
ditions. the typhus epidemic reached
/ its height. There were neither hos
pitfalls nor doctors for the civil popu-
lation. The disease spread like wild
fire, the poor victims dying unattend-
ed, in their homes.
Then came a food famine that
lasted nearly a month. The suffering
from the fever was increased by
hunger. The mortality from typhus
reached IS per cent The disease was
especially deadly when it attacked tia
Austrian prisoners. OF the 1,400
quartered at Valievo only 300 are still
alive. But the Serbian government
is doing its best and the mortality
rate % growing lower"