A Hero Of Donegal, Dr. William Smyth (1902) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER III HIS ELECTION TO THE DISPENSARIES OF DUNGLOW AND BURTONPORT ROSHINE LODGEHIS MARRIAGE In the year 1882 one of the periodical outbreaks of typhus fever occurred on the islands, and to some extent also on the mainland, in the Burtonport district. It broke out as usual in the autumn. This suggests that it was brought over by the men returning from the harvesting in Scotland. There can be no doubt that this has sometimes been the source of the epidemic. The men, when over there, are lodged in wretched " bothies" of the most insanitary kindor at least were so lodged twenty years ago. The result was that besides their earnings they sometimes brought back with them a far more unwelcome gift in the shape of the fever which they gave to wives and children. Oncethe typhus was clearly traced to an importation from Glasgow of old clothes in the last stage of rags and filth, which were eagerly bought up by the people in their then poverty-stricken condition. But these have not been the only causes for the deadly visitations which have been the scourge of the district. Insanitary houses at home as well as in Scotland have had much to do with it, and a scarce and bad water supply has contributed its share. A Roman Catholic priest, who was devotedly ministering to the sick during the outbreak of 1882, thus describes a scene which he will never to his dying day forget: " I went into the house. There lay a splendid girl at the last gasp upon a handful of straw on the floor. In the bed was her mother, stricken with the same fever. In the other room was another of the family with outstretched hands groping delirious round and round the walls; while in a corner the old father lay prostrate and dying." A more awful state of things it would be difficult to imagine. The people are so terrified of the fev...