Читать книгу The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere - M. A. Stobart - Страница 16

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But during all these months, since the establishment of our camp hospital, we had been occupied not only with military work—wounded soldiers—but also with civilian work. We had started with one hundred and thirty wounded within the first few days; but I had at once realised that as the typhus epidemic was diminishing, there would, in all probability, not be enough work to absorb all our energies, unless military activities were resumed.

But it is never of much consequence whether this, that, or the other thing happens; it is the way in which you treat what happens, that is important. If you have an ideal, everything will work together for good. It doesn't so much matter what you do, so long as you do something. Something, even if it is not the ideal, may lead to the ideal, whereas inaction leads to nothing. The one and only fatal disaster is to do nothing.

In a country which had suffered as Serbia had suffered, during years of continuous warfare, there must be need for help of some kind, the only question was, in what direction?

The inspiration came the fifth day after our arrival at Kragujevatz. I was talking with Major Protitch; he was describing the conditions of the country, and he mentioned that one-third of the Serbian doctors had died, either of typhus, or at the front, and that the remainder were all occupied, either with military work, in the hospitals in the towns, or with administrative work, or at the front; with the result that no medical aid was available for the peasants in the country districts.

I realised in a moment what that meant. The country was going through a serious epidemic of typhus, in addition to diphtheria, typhoid, and other diseases; and in the villages, and small towns, there were no doctors to prescribe for the patients, or to check the spread of the infection. Typhus victims, in ox-wagons, still passed our camp all day long on their way to join the four thousand already buried in the typhus graveyard, a short distance beyond our hospital.

It was market day at Kragujevatz (Friday, April 30th), and as I said good-bye to the Serbian doctor, on the edge of our encampment, near the road, I stood and watched the streams of peasants on their way to the market; women in Scotch plaid skirts, with coloured or black kerchiefs on their heads, and children, and old men, all driving pigs and sheep, or carrying geese and poultry slung on sticks, head downwards, over their shoulders, or leading oxen which were drawing wagons filled with barrels of rakiya—the native whisky. And at once an idea came. It was straightway discussed with our doctors, who approved, and promised co-operation, and it was at once carried into effect. Unless we seize time as it passes, it is apt to pass us by. We immediately pitched a bell tent at the outer edge of the hospital encampment, on the roadside, improvised a notice board from an old packing case, and, with the help of an interpreter, wrote, in Serbian, words to the effect, that if folks would bring their own bottles, medicine and medical advice would be given gratis. A doctor, a nurse, and an interpreter took charge of the tent dispensary, and we waited with eager curiosity to see what happened. The result was that within a few weeks 12,000 people, men, women, and children, came to this roadside dispensary, either in ox-wagons or walking from distances of fifty, sixty, even seventy miles—ill with typhus, diphtheria, typhoid, smallpox, tuberculosis, and every conceivable and inconceivable form of disease.

Besides medicine and general treatment and injections of serum, advice was given as to hygiene, sanitation, the need for fresh air and cleanliness, etc. Diphtheria, especially amongst the children, was rampant. Whole families were being exterminated. One day a man brought to the dispensary his little girl, who was suffering from diphtheria, and he asked us to inject her with the serum, of which he had heard from other peasants. He told us that another child had just died, at home, of the same sickness; he had been afraid to bring her, but he had now brought this child to be treated, as it could only die once. The serum was injected, and next day the child was so much better that the following day both the father and the mother arrived, in their ox-wagon, bringing with them their six remaining children, who were all ill with the same disease. They were, of course, all treated with the serum, and this little family was thus saved from being blotted out.

The after-effects of neglected typhus are often worse than the original disease; and amongst ignorant peasants, without doctors, every case of typhus is a neglected case. One day a man brought his little girl (Rositza by name) in an ox-wagon from a distance of thirty miles. The child was suffering from a loathsome-looking leg, the result of neglect after typhus. The two bones of the leg were as bare of flesh as though a dog had gnawed them clean; and the foot was a gangrenous mass of black pulp. Above the knee were huge holes and horrible sores. The child's mother was dead; the father was going to the front next day, and he begged us to take Rositza into our hospital that he might go with a less heavy heart. He quite understood, when he was told, that the only hope for the child's life was amputation of the leg, and his eyes filled with tears of gratitude when we told him that there was no reason why, under our care, her life should not be spared. The leg, half way up to the thigh, was amputated; Rositza, an intelligent and charming child of about twelve years of age, recovered rapidly, and was soon, on crutches, hopping around, mothering other children who occupied our children's ward tents.

For though we were primarily a military hospital, the military authorities waived the usual rule as to the exclusion of civilian patients, and we put up tents respectively for civilian men, for women, and for children, in order to deal with cases which could not be peremptorily treated at the dispensary. Our doctors entered whole-heartedly into the scheme and took it in turns to be on duty by the roadside.

This dispensary work brought clearly to light the fact that war is responsible for maiming and killing not only the fighting portion of the population; it also maims and kills, by slow torture, the women and children who are responsible for the life, health, and vigour of future generations.

Roughly speaking, one-half of the peasants who came to be treated for various diseases, and probably one-half of those who did not come, were suffering from advanced forms of tuberculosis, the result largely of neglect during the last few years of warfare.

The small tent soon had to be exchanged for a larger one; this was curtained into three compartments, one for diagnosis, one with a bed for more private examination by the doctor, and one for the dispenser and dresser.

From the first day the dispensary was besieged, especially on feast-days and fast-days, and most days in Serbia belong to one or the other category, and then sometimes one hundred and eighty patients arrived from near and far; they sat on the grass in the shade of some trees by the roadside, or they stood in a long queue, all waiting their turn to be seen by the doctor. Some cunning ones arrived in their ox-wagons during the night, or at dawn, in order to get their names first on the list. A policeman from the town kept the rota, and saw that turns were fairly kept.

One of the first arrivals was a girl, who had walked for four hours, to ask for medicine for her two brothers and for her mother, who were all ill with typhus. There was no one but herself to tend them, and she had been obliged to leave them alone during her absence. She would not stay to rest, but started back on her four hours' return tramp, her face beaming with happiness as she carried off the precious medicine. Who would tend her, and the others, if she contracted the disease?

Another day six women arrived in a wagon drawn by two cows, from a village forty miles distant. They were all seriously ill with diphtheria, but after the serum injection they climbed back into their straw lairs for the return journey, as happy as queens.

One man walked sixty miles to come to us, and sixty miles back to his home, to bring his daughter, who was suffering from swollen glands, which needed an operation. The girl had no mother, and the father, who was going to the front in a few days, rejoiced greatly at being able to leave her in safe hands.

Interesting side-lights were sometimes thrown on the beliefs and superstitions of the people. A woman came complaining of pains in her chest. They were not from indigestion, and none of the usual questions by the interpreter brought any enlightenment. But after much roundabout talk it was discovered that the woman had lately lost her father and two brothers, the former from typhus, and the latter at the front. And, in the customary demonstration of her grief, she had beaten her chest violently; the force of the triple grief had been too much for the poor chest, and it felt hurt.

For those who came from long distances, refreshments were provided, and Miss Anna Beach, one of our orderlies, arranged a stove and tables near the dispensary, and stood all day in the hot sun, or the rain, serving tea, and coffee, and bread, and plum jam—all much appreciated, especially by the children. Mr. Beck distributed refugee garments to those who were in need, and made himself otherwise useful at the dispensary.

The people had a great prejudice against going to hospitals. A man, who brought his twelve-year-old boy, suffering from confluent smallpox, wept bitterly when he was told he must take him to the hospital in the town. On another day, a woman brought her daughter, who was at death's door with diphtheria; and when our doctors said that the girl must stay with us in hospital, as she was too weak to bear the jolting of the wagon on the return journey, the woman replied, astonished, "Hospital! Why, she is much too ill to go to a hospital!" The girl was taken away, and probably died in the cart on the way home.

But the people soon regarded our hospital in a different light, probably because of the tents, and also because the doctors were women, the nurses were devoted, and the atmosphere was homely. Our difficulty soon was, indeed, in preventing them from coming. One woman travelled for twenty-four hours, bringing with her in her ox-wagon four of her children—the eldest eight years old—all ill with malaria; she had confidently expected that they would all be allowed to come into the hospital.

Indeed, it became the fashion for people, even of other classes than the peasants, to come to the dispensary, especially on feast days. Then, after a time, a spirit of emulation seized the patients, and, as the best available means of distinction from other patients, was a surgical operation, they all clamoured for operations, irrespective of requirements. The doctors often gave offence by refusing to concede this much-wanted luxury.

One woman, who had been cured of a dislocated shoulder, still demanded an operation. When she was told that this was not necessary, and that no operation would be performed, she was angry, and retorted, "Very well, I shall cure myself." The doctor asked her how she would do this, and she replied triumphantly, "I shall hold a live frog in my hand as soon as I get home." Another woman, very ill with diphtheria, came to the dispensary buoyed by the hope of tracheotomy. She was delighted when we took her into the hospital and told her that there was a possibility that her wish might be gratified. The only trouble was that she had a tiny baby at home; but she had been brought to us by her old mother, so we sent grannie back for the baby. It was a sickly child, and we took care of it in the baby ward. The mother was disappointed of her tracheotomy, but when she recovered and saw her baby again, her joy and surprise on seeing that it had grown fat and rosy, almost compensated her for her own disappointment.

Children loved being in the hospital, and when they were there, it was difficult to get rid of them, especially when they lived great distances away. Return transport was not easy to arrange, if the parents were not in a hurry to arrange it. "Ah!" said one small girl reproachfully to her mother, who at last came to fetch her, "you never give me sheets like this!"