"In a great and lonely field, opposite a solitary house within a large yard, our train
pulled up at last, and the conductor commanded the passengers to make haste and get
out. [...] [The conductor] hurried us into the one large room that made up the house,
and then into the yard. Here a great many men and women, dressed in white, received
us, the women attending the women and girls of the passengers, and the men the
others. This was another scene of bewildering confusion, parents losing their children,
and little ones crying; baggage being thrown together in one corner of the yard, heedless
of contents, which suffered in consequence; those white-clad Germans shouting
commands, always accompanied with "Quick! Quick!" -- the confused passengers
obeying all orders like meek children, only questioning now and then what was to be
done with them. And no wonder if in some minds stories arose of people being captured
by robbers, murderers, and the like. Here we had been taken to a lonely place where
only that house was to be seen; our things were taken away, our friends separated from
us; a man came to inspect us, as if to ascertain our full value; strange-looking people
driving us about like dumb animals, helpless and unresisting; children we could not see
crying in a way that suggested terrible things; ourselves driven into a little room where a
great kettle was boiling on a little stove; our clothes taken off, our bodies rubbed with a
slippery substance that could be any bad thing; a shower of warm water let down on us
without warning; again driven together to another little room where we sit, wrapped in
woolen blankets till large, coarse bags are brought in, their contents turned out, and we
see only a cloud of steam, and hear a woman's voice to dress ourselves, -- "Quick!
Quick!" -- or else we'll miss -- something we cannot hear. We are forced to pick out our
clothes from among the others, with the steam blinding us; we choke, cough, entreat the
women to give us time; they persist, "Quick! Quick! -- or you'll miss the train!" Oh, so we
really won't be murdered! They are only making us ready for the continuing of our
journey, cleaning us of all suspicions of dangerous illness. Thank God!"
Mary Antin's bewilderment at disinfection and quarantine, arising from
disorientation and novelty, is understandable, so too are the wild rumors that would
come from incomprehension and anxiety. But it must be said that such measures were
necessary: the year before Mary Antin made her passage in 1893, Hamburg had been
hard hit by a cholera epidemic, and New York City had been hit with both a cholera and
typhus epidemic.
The Germans, in the context of reorganizing the Turkish army, spent a great deal of
effort in controlling typhus and other diseases.101 The two main tools of this effort were
the Dampfdesinfektionwagens (mobile steam disinfection trucks) and the Turkish baths,
which were converted for disinfection purposes.102 The Germans used primarily sulfur
gas, which required a generator (Vergaser) that would burn the sulfur and provide the
gas.103 Already at the beginning of 1914 the Germans were using vergasen (gasify, gas)
as a synonym for begasen (fumigate).
http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres5/crowellholmes.pdf