TYPHUS FEVER 115 



All the German Staff, both administrative and 

 medical, fled at once. The authorities cut off 

 all necessary sanitary supplies, and forbade any 

 communication between the people outside and 

 the unfortunate prisoners. Man after man went 

 down before the disease, and the epidemic spread 

 right through the camp as the calculating 

 brutality of the enemy doubtless intended that 

 it should. Of 800 prisoners who contracted the 

 complaint, 300 died, a heavy mortality which 

 could not have been approached had any facilities 

 been afforded to alleviate the suffering. The 

 Medical Officer in charge, Dr. Aschenbach, visited 

 the camp only once during the six months that 

 the epidemic raged, and then only in a most 

 casual manner. When Major Fry asked him for 

 some simple remedies he turned away with a 

 muttered insult. Of the six British doctors who 

 grappled heroically with the disease, almost with 

 their bare hands, four contracted the fever, and 

 three, Major W. B. Fry and Captains A. C. 

 Sutcliffe and S. Field, died of the malady, while 

 Major A. E. Priestley, C.M.G., and Captains A. C. 

 Vidal and J. La Fayette Lauder survived the 

 horrors and gave to a startled world unshakable 

 testimony of this unspeakable atrocity. There 

 cannot be the slightest excuse for this cynical 

 proceeding. The Germans knew, as we knew, 

 that typhus was spread by lice, and that the 

 epidemic could have been cut short and stamped 

 out a week after its commencement by the dis- 



