The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1920-01-02
Vienna famine
CROWS WORSE:
Austrian City Dark, Funerals Un"
able to Keep Pace with Death
From Starvation.
ALL CHILDREN ARE HUNGRY.
Former Baltimore Professor Details
Terrible Conditions-$15,0 900 600 Is
Needed - Political Jealousies
Make Matters Worse.

Vienna.-Famine stricken Vienna Is
stolidly awaiting it's doom. Chancellor
Renner has obtained in Paris prom
ise of four weeks supply of flour,
but the supply in hand is enough for
only a few days. The expected ship
ment, doled out as hunger rations,
will provide less than half the mini
mum requirement of the city.
The markets are closed. The from
tiers of Austria are prison walls,
within which two and a quarter mil
lion people live in darkness, suffering
from cold and hunger Virtually the
only relief is supplied by the Ameri-
can Children's kitchens, which are
financed to feed 107, 900 daily. Even
in this group a medical examination
every eight weeks weeds out a class
of children who are merely undernour-
ished to make room for those of Glass
A, the undernourished and i'll, and
Glass B, the seriously undernourished.
There are also occasional cOntribu-
tions Of food in carload lots from
Sweden and Italy, and even from
Germany.
American relief is under the super
vision of a local committee headed by
the noted children's specialist, Prof.
C. Won Pirquet, formerly of Johns
Hopkins University and Hospital. DR..
Won Pirquet said that the new food
unit he had introduced was now being
generally used in relief work, one
kilOnem being the nOuriShment value
of a liter of milk, equivalent to 66l
caIories.
sIn peace times," DR.. Won Pirquet
said, "the average inhabitant of Euro
pean cities receives from three and
one-half to four and one-half kilOnems.
Three are the absolute requirement
for the maintenance of health. Our
present city government ration is only
| one and a half That is, this amount
is what was promised few weeks
| ago, but only half of the promise Is
being fulfilled.
"Vienna has become beggar. She
| is unable to buy She is willing to,
| but her money is valueleSs and she
has no securities to offer except work
She is unable to buy raw materials
! We have formed a private company
with the assistance of the Hoover
! American relief organization as ad
wiser and with myself as a sort OF
chief of staff. The government has
subscribed 100000 crowns, the city
| 6n
This company is now feeding 10000
persons at public kitchens at cost
But, although this capital would be
ample in normal times, we are balke(
because we cannot purchase supplies
with Austrian crowns.
"The entire outlay required to tide
Vienna over the crisis at the presen
maximum market prices is $15,OOO,OO
Unless we obtain this we go to pieces
ALREADY there are complaints tha
the city cemetery is unable to handle
bodies eXpeditiously enough.
"Other diseases due to undernour
ishment are appearing Among then
are osteomalacia, weakness of tht
bones, due to absence of salts of lime
dropsy, caused by eating too many wa
terry foods, and scurvy, from lack o
vitamines, which comes even to ampl!
fed children who lack fresh food. AL
idea of our desperate state is obtained
from the fact that while the norma
milk supply of Vienna is 1,O0O,00t
liters daily the present supply is onl.
10000 liters. There are 100000 chill
dren under fourteen years of age, ant
two-thirds of these are getting no mill
| Whatsoever"