The Alaska daily empire., 1916-04-25
REPORT REVEALS GREAT SUFFERING
 WAR PRISONERS

LONDON, April 9.--The govern. ment committee on the treatment Of Germany of British prisoners of war, of which Justice Younger is chair man, has issued a report on the con- ditions prevailing in the Wittenberg camp during the typEus epidemic last year
 The report is ba, ed on information from repatriated prisoners and espec- ially from Major Priestley, Captain Vidal and Captain Lauder. of the ar my medical corps, who were sent to the camp shortly after the outbreak of the epidemic, and who recently were released from Germany.
 The three officers mentioned are the only survivors of six British doc tors sent to the Wittenberg camp by the Germans to take up," says the report. "the place of duty aban- doned by their own medical staff when the presence of typhus mani tested itself"
 hcC0INo oi EPll -Ilte
 The records of the epidemic kept by the British officers were taken from them before their departure from Germany. but the report gives in detail the condition of the camp and the treatment of the prisoners and patients. which the American Ambassador Jas. w. Gerard in his report last November said was lev en more unfavorable than I had been led to suspect"
 According to the released officers there are 15,OOO. and sometimes more, prisoners in this camp, which the committee says lis an enormous pop ulation for SO restricted an area as 1Oik acres. There were no proper heating arrangements and the men were insufficiently clothed their over conts having been taken from them, their clothing being in rags Many had neither boots, nor socks There was an insufficient supply of water
 Food insufficient
 The supply of food was also insuf- flcient, even in the hospital, until supplies were received from England, it is said.
 "The only provision for personal cleanliness made for the men, says the report "was one cupful of soft soap issued at intervals of many weeks to room containing 12O. In consequence. the men became in- creasingly verminous, and that con- dition, coupled with cold and want of proper nourishment, wos undoubtedly the principal cause of the epidem- ic."
 "The epidemic broke out in De- cember 1914 "Thereupon, says the report "the German staff, military and medical precipitately left the camp thenceforth until August, 1915, no communication was held between the prisoners and their guards except by means of directions shouted from the guards or officers remaining out side the wire entanSlcments.
 Mattresses Scarce
 "All supplies for the men were pushed into the camp over chutes. No medical attention during the en- tire time was provided by the Ger man staff
 Captain Ladder reports that while in the bungalows there was nor many one mattress for three men, in the improvised hospital there were no mattresses at all
 "In consequence" he says, there were many typhus patients scattered over the compounds who were de- termined not to so into the hospital if they could help t"
 In one compound he found fifty hidden cases of typhus during the first month.
 Food Is a Roll and Milk N
 The food ration for each patient was half petit pain (rolD and a half cup of milk day. The only soup obtainable came from the camp kitchen, and as it was brought in open wooden tubs 1t was full of dust and dirt material Tn truth" says the report, "the ration was not a ration at all. 1t was a Dretense. It was not even possible to give the pa- tlent warm water with their milk. Four British doctors were infected; three of them died.
 Tt was then that Major Priestly and Captain Vidal went to the hos pital to joint Captain Lauder, who was down with the typhus. Major Priestly says that the patients, alive with vermin, lay so close to one an- other on the floor that he had to stand straddlelegged across them to examine them.
 "There were other conditions that aro {ndescribable There was diff