Page 62 - Stradanje i humanizam

prisoners and this fellow citizens. Similarly like Draginja Babić. He died on 19 February 1915 at the
Fifth Regiment hospital. Many doctors in the Valjevo hospitals, in the town and its surroundings died of
the epidemic, and the number of over twenty in a very short period of time is constantly being revised
even today, and the same applies to the number of other medical staff, like Nadežda Petrović, who
treated and cared for the sufferers to their last breath.
Hope
After the repeated dramatic calls for help from the Serbian government and the medical corps,
extensive assistance started arriving from abroad. The assistance included primarily medical staff,
medical equipment, money, but also other needs such as water pumps, vehicles, chemical materials,
clothing and footwear, petroleum and more. The most important assistance were of course specialist
doctors, as Serbia no longer had them. A. Reiss stated that “a quarter of Serbian doctors, who were few
to start with, left their lives on their battlefield, next to their patients.“ Assistance was provided by
foreign governments, national Red Cross organizations, various humanitarian and charitable
organizations, and individuals. A huge assistance was provided by Serbian Support Fund from London
and the SWH organizations, which provided assistance for ten out of the total of 14 hospitals in Serbia
equipped with personnel and equipment by various countries. In addition, several Russian medical
teams fully equipped to combat the epidemic were received. While the greatest burden in the
catastrophe that struck the Serbian people was borne by the Serbian doctors, this international
humanitarian solidarity had a crucial contribution in overcoming these troubles. It is believed that,
within the framework of these actions in Serbia, there were at least 2,000 people who came to help, most
of them dearly needed medical staff. The key role in the organization of the suppression of typhoid fever
and other diseases was that of the National Committee for the Prevention of Infectious Diseases and the
doctors in its ranks. The epidemic, it was apparent, could not be overcome by individual measures.
Colonel Hunter, who came to organize the disease control, had proposed a series of measures that begun
to yield results. Transport was stopped, schools were closed, and disinfection stations were set up at
many places, especially at railway stations. However, the key role in delousing the population and
buildings belongs to an invention by the English officer Stammers that helped with the mass destruction
of lice. The experienced English officer's measures would have certainly yielded good results, but not
as successful without this invention. It was a so-called “Serbian barrel“ that allowed reaching the
required temperature of about 120 degrees Celsius to kill lice with steaming, while preserving the
clothes contained in the barrel.
Among the first who came to Valjevo was the famous scientist Ludvig Hirsfeld who, driven solely
by the humane intent, came to help the Serbian people. Having arrived at the most difficult time, he
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organized a series of sanitary measures in Valjevo from his little bacteriology station in the Fifth
Regiment hospital. As he himself stated, after the terrible news about the epidemic of typhus that had
reached him in Switzerland, he could no longer sit still, and he volunteered to help the people who was
deserving of help and who needed it. His cousin, doctor Klocman, who had come to Serbia earlier, upon
Hirsfeld's arrival, also came from the Smederevo hospital to Valjevo. A few months later, they were
joined also by Hirsfeld's wife Hanna. The struggle against lice and typhus led by the Serbian doctors
was giving results, but despite the utmost will and commitment they were unable to overcome the
epidemic completely. There was a need for an extensive joint action in all places, and the
implementation of a series of measures throughout the country. In Valjevo, even before the official
measures were announced, Hirsfeld had set to work on cleaning and disinfecting hospitals, houses and
all other facilities. Although, as he himself said, the extensive disinfection of the town that he
implemented maybe did not have great results, it was much more important in terms of raising
everyone's moral and spirit. In a state of despair and hopelessness, Hirsfeld and his authority raised
hope. The people started seeing him as “the winning leader of the war against the epidemic.“ What was
perhaps the most important was the knowledge that there is a way out of that catastrophe and troubles
that had befallen the Serbian people. “People in despair, tormented by the epidemic, totally apathetic in
the midst of a lack of means, felt as if they were reborn with hope,“ he said himself. What was initiated
in Valjevo with Hirsfeld marked the beginning of the birth of the new power and will of the people of
this town to survive. Nothing seemed impossible any more, regardless of the previous and future
victims. A series of lectures on infectious diseases was initiated in Valjevo, and thus Valjevo became a
small university branch of the great Zurich University. In his small laboratory, he soon developed
previously unknown vaccines proven for typhoid A, which were one of the first paratyphoid A vaccines
in the world. As he himself said, interpersonal relations between the prisoners and the Serbs were very
understanding. “I emphasize that, in relation to them, among the Serbs there was not a single sign of
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hatred, quite the contrary, and they treated them in a deeply humane way.“ The Head of his hospital
was doctor Bašević, who also took care of all the teams and volunteers who came from abroad to
Valjevo.
Now more than famous Flora Sandes came to Valjevo on 24 February 1915 with Ms. Simmonds to
help to save the sick and wounded. With them they brought to Serbia humanitarian assistance they had
collected in the UK and the USA. That included among other things medical supplies, as much as 120
tons, among which chloroform, plaster, disinfectants, cotton wool, gauze, and even an X-ray machine.
A part of the material arrived with them to Valjevo. The two of them found two American doctors at the
time of the peak of the epidemic with whom both of them survived typhoid, and about 5,000 sick and
wounded. The two American doctors, Albert Cook and Barton Cookingham, had arrived already in
January 1915, as they were not satisfied with their status in the American hospital in France. Cook
began his work at the Grammar School hospital, and Cookingham at the Sekulić Hotel, which had
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