The sun., 1919-03-06
TREATS I'LL At SEA
OVER RADIOPHONE
Chief Surgeon Of Service
Checks Influenza Aboard
the POwhatan. ,.g.
Mt. SINAI UNIT RETURNS
Forty-five Medical Officers
and 35 Nurses Cared for the
Wounded at Vauclaire.
MT. SINAI UNIT RETURNS

A consultation at sea by wireless
telegraph and telephone was tho feature
of the trips OF the transports Sierra
and Powhatan. which arrived yester-
day from France, Just after she left
Bordeaux with 1855 officers and mon an
epidemic of influenza developed aboard
the Powhatan. and she returned and
put ashore twenty-five patients most
seriously affected.
When the ships were in the longi-
tude of the Azores and about fifteen
miles apart the wireless telephone was
substituted for the telegraph, used at
a longer distance in the swapping OF
sentiments about the Ill aboard the
Powhatan. the influenza having broken
out afresh, with more than 100 cases.
Lieut.. Commander A. r. Younie. Medi-
cal Corps, senior surgeon Of the Sierra,
suggested over the phone treatment for
the Powhatan's patients. One was
close to death and the phoned prescrtp-
ton Of DR.. Younie put him on the road
to recovery. None Of the Ill died. Later
the Sierra picked UP a message from
a British steamship that reported a
member Of her crew seriously Ill. and
LII louHhlc, hIltT ktltlHB the symptoms,
told the skipper what to do.
Boon for Merchant Craft.
DR.. Younie said that as the larger
part of the merchant marine, that is
the thousands Of freighters, did not
carry physicians, prescribing by wire
less, especially by telephone doubtless
would become commonplace in few
years. It would not be necessary, when
the radius Of the wireless telephone COM
munication had become enlarged. to con-
suit physicians ahoat, for the shore
would be in reach maybe even from
the mid-Atlantic.
Robert Earle whitby, machinist's
mate, first class, in the Navy, returned
by the Sierra wearing the French Legion
Of Honor decoration and the Croix de
Guerre. He Is veteran OF the Spanish
war. enhsting in the army when he was
IS. He was discharged in tho summer
of 1914 and went TO France and Joined
the Foreign Legion and was recovering
from wounds when Gen. Gallienis army
went out OF Paris In taxicabs to save
the French at the first battle OF the
Marine. He was wounded Ave times and
after getting we'll went back to his COM
mand.
Captured . Woman Spy.
In the Somme in 1916 he got a bullet
through the right thigh, but recovering.
started In again. On the Disc he was
permanently disabled in April. 1917. by
shell shock. the surgeons said. But he
was not, as the Navy accepted him
later as perfectly sound person. He
won the Croix de Guerre for capturing
a machine gun crew. after killing some
of them. and bringing back two machine
guns. He got the Legion OF Honor for
capturing a woman spy in Paris while
he was on sick leave. He spotted her
because of her suspicious actions, was
detailed by the police to watch her, and
got enough evidence to have her i'm
prisoned.
The Santa Marta, from Brest brought
ninety-seven officers including forty-flve
medical officers and thirty-five nurses.
With the casual officers was Capt. Lind
say Denison. formerly of the Evening
World, member OF the Quartermaster
Corps and recently attached to Base
HOSPITAL %. With the physicians and
nurses was the Mount Sinai Hospital
Unit in command OF Major A L.fCeller.
The thirty-five nurses OF the unit went
to Mount Sinai and the sixteen surgeons
to Camp Merritt. They were stationed
at Vauclaire.