Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 257, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1912 — What a Reporter Saw in the Room of Dread [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

What a Reporter Saw in the Room of Dread

KANSAS CITY, MO. —A reporter for a local newspaper wanted to be taken on a sight-seeing tour of the General hospital. Dr. L. W. Luscher, superintendent of the institution, granted the request “I'll take you myself and we’ll start in on the third floor,” he said. The particular part of the third floor in which they began their visit seemed an unusual place, even to the visitor, unaccustomed to qights in a hospital. Nurses and orderlies appeared ghostly in white garments and heavy white masks entirely covering the face and head, with-only room enough to see. They also wore rubber gloves. The masks were so arranged that the air they breathed was filtered by passing through them. The visitor saw two rows of ten beds each, separated by a wide aisle.

Thirteen of the beds were occupied. The hands and feet of a few were bound to prevent them from tossing about in , their beds and falling out. The visitor was deeply Impressed by the strange scene. He had so strongly sympathized with the patients that he had not aaked the superintendent any questions. As he waß leaving the big room he wanted to know about the masks, the restraining bonds on the hands and feet of the patients, and finally the disease with which they were infected. “That big room is the isolation ward for patients infected with cerebro-spinal meningitis,” replied the superintendent The visitor’s spine began to creep. Then he thought of his heels and took to them as fast as he could, reaching the elevator just as it had passed out of sight While the visitor waited Dr. Luscher continued: “Those masks are to prevent possible infection, but the attendants do not know whether or not they are immune from infection with the deadly germß. They work blindly, as all do in caring for meningitis patients. They are heroes and heroines, facing death aB long as—" but the eulogy never was finished, for the visitor hurried into the elevator.