The Sentinel=record., 1915-04-18
BELIEVE TYPHUS
 SPREAD IN AIR
NOT A DIRT" DISEASE BECAUSE IT REACHES THE VERY CLEAN
 " OF HABIT.
1t Is Said That More Than GO Per Cent of the Cases Die on the Tenth Day of Heart Failure.

New York, April 17-Belief is be coming common in Serbia that the fast spreading and fatal typhus there is communicated not only by vermin but by simple contagion through the air breathed, according to letter from Mme. Eoya MarionkOyitch wife of the Serbian minister of agriculture. She reports that the Serbian army continues generally untouched by the fever, but its ravages among the Aus trian prisoners and civilians of all classes all over Macedonia and Ser bia continue without abatement. The letter is to her sister, Mile Helene LosanitcA who is now in New York in the interests of Serbian relief.
 They say it is a dirt disease" she writes, and yet so many Of the eases are those of persons who frequently bathe and use antiseptics, that one is forced to believe the contagion is in the air we breathe. After every pre- caution has been taken in hospitals. and stricken persons isolated. the wounded as well as doctors and nurses continue to fall iu
 Mime. MariOnkovitch reports the death of Mme. Lukoyitcl, president of the Serbian Circle of Sisters who con- tracted typhus while on a visit of in- spection to the hospitals at Valyevo. Although during her illness she knew she was condemned to death, she did not once complain. but died as heroic a woman as she had lived. says the writer.
 We greatly fear" she continued that during the hot weather the dis ease will spread as it did during the Bulgarian war All our hope lies in the Rockefeller commission, which. as you know, came out to investigate con- ditions They have promised 10 rec ommend that the Rockefeller founda- tion and the American Red Cross send us a sanitary commission composed of bacteriologists, and of doctors and nurses skilled in treating tropical dis eases. Please while you are in America send us reports which have been published in any of tae medical papers of work done in connection with typhus or other tropical diseases. It would be of great use to our doe tors if these could be translated into Serbian
 Do please tell me at once if they have done anything in America by way of inoculating against typhus. At present there is nothing to help it put careful nursing. It is said that over 60 per cent die of heart failure. on about the tenth day of the illness.
 When each day brings news of the deaths, not only of those of our poorer classes, but of SD many of those of our own class, l sometimes wonder who will be left to inherit the Greater Serbia which we are promised by the great powers as compensation for all We have suffered.
 We hear that our men as well as the Russians who were taken prison CTS are all dying in the detention camps of Austria, and that the villages of Southern Austria are even more severely stricken with typhus than those here.
 But for the awful depression and heartbreaking sorrow of this epidemic perhaps more than anything else. has prevented the Austrians from even at tempting an invasion Of our land since they were driven out about the middle of December. Now that our army is reformed, recluthed, reyictuled, let them come if they want another beat ing such as we gave them the last time lt is a comfort to know that the army has been put under shelter in peasant houses or sheds construct 1 ed especially for them"