DISEASE IN RUSSIA

Evening Star, Issue 19387, 22 October 1926, Page 7

DISEASE IN RUSSIA

There has appeared recently in the ‘ British Medical Journal ’ “ a medical review of Soviet Russia)” by Dr Horsley Gantt, formerly chief of the medical division of the American Relief Administration, Leningrad Unit. The author described the effects of war conditions upon the population, creating conditions in which only an energetic public health policy such as was pursued in Germany and Finland could have circumscribed the outbreaks of disease which threatened at the end of the war. Unhappily “ from 1917 through 1919 there was civil war of greater magnitude and destruction than the previous world war, involving nearly every person in Russia; and from 1919 into the summer of 1923 there were famine and starvation affecting threefourths of the people and accompanied by epidemics of typhus and relapsing fever, affecting one out of every four adults, and by smaller epidemics of cholera and smallpox. These events completely smashed Russia.” During the five years of acute misery everyone led the most primitive life and all suffered from “ indescribable physical, mental, and moral hardships.” Since 1922, however, there has been a gradual return toward normal life for the great mass of the Russian people. Nevertheless, the position is_ still far from satisfactory. The Russian death rate in 1921 was 22.9 per 1,000, as against 12.2 per I,OUU in Fngland and Wales. 12.1 per 1,000 in Germany, and 17,2 per 1,000 in France. Since 1922 the tremendous epidemics of typhus fever and relapsing fever have markedly decreased, cholera also has decreased, and the fact that the Soviet Government Has instituted coinpulsory vaccination has reduced the incidence of smallpox. But malaria lever, syphilis, and tuberculosis remain problems at the present day. The outbreak of malaria reached its highest point in 1923, when .over 6,000,000 cases were registered. In fact, according to Dr Gantt, it is probable that 18,000,000 rases occurred. Tuberculosis is undoubtedly still rife in Russia. A trustworthy report for the year 1924 testified that of the students of Kiev University 47 per cent, were afflicted by the disease. The problem of syphilis is even more disturbing. There are stated to ho distiicts in Russia in which in 1925 80 per cent, of the population was affected.