Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1919 — IN SHEER CRUELTY [ARTICLE]

IN SHEER CRUELTY

Boches Operated on Prisoners Without Anesthetics. Ample Proof That There Wae No Shortage of Medical Supplies Is Evidence of Fiendishness of Hun Surgeons. A British '■ prisoner taken near St. Quentin in March said that all amputations in. Germany were being done without anesthetics, owing to alleged shortages of them. A correspondent ”writes! ■ ' - •' —”~ “On the day-that the prince of Wales entered Denain and attended the service of thanksgiving in the church there I lingered behind after all the ceremonies were over and talked with tlje inhabitants. They had been badly treated. They were full of the stories of their legitimate woes. One old man said to me: “ ‘M’sieu should see the English doctor. He knows!’ “I saw him. He was a major in charge of a Canadian field ambulance. When I-found him, in the huge building which he had transformed into a 'hospital, he was busy superintending the treatment of women and pitiful little children who had been gassed by the Boches in defiance of all the laws of humanity.- There was one little fellow howling with terror. He did not wish to retbain with the military. He had only known the German soldier! ‘“Well, then take him away, poor little chap,’ sal# the major. ‘Bring him back three times a day to be dressed.’ “Then the major and I talked of the successful Canadian attack and of the

condition of the town when it had been taken. It was not a pretty story. It was, in fact, a terrible indictment against the Boche. “ ‘They starved the civilians. The only meat they gave theni in three years was three dead mules. And all the time their own officers were living on the best.’ “ ‘Then there was shortage?’ “ ‘Oh, yes, there was a shortage; but the German officers did not feel it.’ “ ‘And their other supplies? Your line, for instance —medical supplies?’ “The major laughed. “ Conic with me,’ he said, ‘and I’ll show you a field medical cart that we captured just as they were driving it off. It is one of the most w’onderful things I have ever seen.’ ; ' “We went into the transport yard and here we fount something like ar Scotch cart with a closed-in top, bearing the Red Cross on its sides. The major let down the back flap and w r e saw a series of drawers, like an enlarged card-index file cabinet. He pulled one out. “ ‘Look at tfiat,’ he said. ‘There you have most of the drugs we have been short of for months —and have them in profusion. Morphia, chloroform — anything you like. It is the most perfect thing of its kind I have ever seen. “You could sell that cart’s cargo in England for its weight in gold. It contains some -Of the m valuable and rarest synthetic drugs in the world. It is treasure trove. . . . Like a souvenir? Here, then —here’s a case of a dozen phials of porphine —or chloroform —or antipyrin.’ “That was in a field medical cart 1 If such a supply of rare drugs could be sent up practically to the front line, what must the German have had in his rear hospitals? What, then, can be his excuse for aniputatingJtheJjmbs_ of our wounded prisoners without anesthetics? Can it have been any- •• thing but wa nt<m cruelty ? . ~ “That field medical cart is the evidence !”■ —Boston Transcript.