New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-05-26
Deserving the
/ Medical Code
OF Honor
Stories Of German Doc
tors Alleged Trait
!orous Conduct on the
Field Of War
TN AN ARTICLE. in "The Century
I, Magazine" on "war and the Physi-

N AN. ARTICLE. in THE Century
Magazine" on ''War and'the Physi-
siam Frederick Peterson reviews
some of the :"sworn statements" which
represent German doctors as DESERVING
the medical code of honor. One Of these
terribly disconcerting stories" he re-
capitulates as follows:
"At tho German prison camp Wittenberg
there were from $4,000 to 1900 prisoners
con6ned ina space, of. ten acres, surround
ed by wire entangiements. At the end of
1914 typhus broke out among them, and the
entire staff of German medical and military
officers, nurses and guards fed from the
camp From December. 1914, to August,
1915, period of eight months, there was
ne direct communication between the. pris-
oners and their guards. Food and collins
were pushed over the wire fences through
chutes. Six English medical officers, pris
oners from other camps--prisoners in VIC
lation of the international code of war
which makes physicians neutral-were put
into this place to do the duty of the Ger
mans, which they nobly Gid. Three of them
died in this work. The three surviving
English doctors make this shocking report
No appliances of any kind, no mattresses,
dressings, bandages, stimulants or soap
were furnished them. A German doctor
named Aschenbach, whose name will doubt
less go down in history, is said to have been
sent by the Kaiser to investigate Hooded,
masked and clothed to avoid danger, he
stood at the wire gate of the inclosure for
an hour to ask questions, for which coura-
geous act he Is reported to have received
an Iron Cross"
Mr.. Peterson proceeds to describe
massacres in which the slaughterers
wore Red Cross badges on their arms,
and pillaging in which deaconesses in
black clothes, with white colts and Red
Cross armlets, took anything that
pleased them. He tells, also, how Ger
man doctors robbed French doctors and
wounded. His most shocking revelation
is that many needless amputations were
performed on French prisoners so that
they could not fight against Germany
ain the next war" On this point the
writer says:
|. ''This would lend color to our surmise
that, if. these attested statements are true,
| the German doctors may have been under
| orders from superior officers whom they
dared not disobey. In the past their army
| doctors have been logged on order, from a
colonel, and we may readily believe that in
WI r-t1 m with ba;,
:. disobedience. These stories are inconceiv-
able to the rest of the medical world, in
| which orders of the kind would be dis
obeyed and the consequences, whatever they
| might be, accepted There should be some
day, for the sake of the German medical
profession, an international medical inves~
tigation of these alleged atrocities of ply.
sicians."
After describing the organization al
and behind the front for the treatment
OF wounded by the Allies, Mr.. Peterson
goes on to enumerate other responsible
ties of the physician, in country where
an army is to be raised and trained, in
eliminating the unfit, selecting sites for
camps, attending to sanitary arrange
ments and managing hospitals.
Vast preparations are being made"
he writes, 'for the reception of nervous
and mental cases in special hospitals.
This has been done because this war
more than any other in history has shat,
tered the nervous systems of the SOL
diers."
-.