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100 Years Ago | 13 October 1918

On this day a century ago, these were some of the news items The Statesman readers got to read about India and the world.

100 Years Ago | 13 October 1918

OCCASIONAL NOTE

At the beginning of the present year a Chemical Warfare Medical Committee was appointed to deal with aspects of chemical warfare in which medical science is concerned. One of its first duties was to make a special study of the symptoms, immediate and remote, due to gas poisoning, and it has now issued a report on this subject. It describes the gases used by the enemy in warfare as of three varieties – suffocative, vesicant or blistering, and purely lacrymatory. The first named were the first to be used, in April and May, 1915, when chlorine gas was liberated from cylinders to drift forward with the wind.

Lethal gas shells came into use in the autumn of 1916; they contain more powerful gases of the suffocative order which have taken the place of chlorine, or in some cases are used in combination with it. A little later the enemy introduced the mustard gas shells, containing the vesicant dichlorethyl sulphide, which produces the effect of severe burning. It is an oily liquid, which is scattered from the shells and slowly evaporates from the ground. Even when spattered on the clothing it has a most irritating effect, first on the eyes and then on the skin. At present the policy of the enemy seems to be to fire simultaneously gas shells of different types, some of which will cause so much irritation that the man exposed to them will discard his respirator and thus become vulnerable to gases of a more deadly kind. Exposure to lacrymatory gas produces only a temporary irritation.

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BOMBAY INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC

It is hoped that the corner has been turned in the terrible second influenza epidemic that has been raging here for the last three weeks. The registered death rate in the city last week is shown by the compiled returns issued today to have been approximately ten times the normal for this season of the year, and the excess is wholly due to influenza and the pneumonia which accompanies it. Small-pox, plague and cholera were practically absent.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact daily returns of deaths now, because through sickness and overwork the municipal registration staff have got behind with their returns, but it is definitely known that mortality has been declining steadily if slightly during the last few days. The great amount of burning at the Hindu burning ghats has led in same quarters to a renewal of the demand made among advanced Hindus a few years ago for the erection of municipal crematorium on the scientific lines adopted in Western countries.

FROM ENGLAND TO EGYPT

The Press Bureau states that two officers of the Royal Air Force accompanied by two mechanics have just flown from England to Egypt on an ordinary service machine only halting once or twice for petrol, the flight being a piece of routine work. The distance flown was over two thousand miles and the pace was good throughout. This event is full of promise for the development of British aviation after the war.

THE REAL PRINCE MAX

A letter which Prince Max wrote to Prince Alexander von Hohenlohe throws singular light on the mentality of the Chancellor. The latter, who now poses as the head of a democratised Germany, then wrote as follows: The newspapers of the Left are overpowering me with praises although I have condemned plainly enough the democratic watchword and all the theoretical and political formulae comprised in the word parliamentarisation.

In order to judge of the sincerity of Prince Max’s espousal of the Reichstag peace resolution it will suffice to give another passage from the same letter. He said, I naturally desire a more comprehensive political exploitation of our military success. I also am an opponent of the abominable peace resolution, which is the fruit of fear. I am anxious that we should obtain the amplest reparations possible, whatever form they take, in order to save us from impoverishment after the war. THE

ARAB FORCES IN PALESTINE

The Allies’ recognition of the belligerent status of the Arab forces in Palestine and Syria does not refer to the Hedjaz, the independence of which the Entente officially recognised at the end of 1916, but to other Arabs who have been co-operating with the British in Palestine and the Hedjaz Arabs. In particular the Bedduins of the Syrian desert, most of whom belong to the great Anaza Confederation inhabiting the whole region between Syria and the Euphrates, assisted the operations of the Hedjaz troops east of the Jordan.

Indeed without their support the raids on the Hedjaz railway north of Maan would have been most difficult. The Arabs of Hauran and Syria are also pro-Ally. The Emir of Riadh, the most powerful prince in Central Arabia, is an ally of the British and has been successfully campaigning against the Emir of Nael whom the Turks supported.

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