THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1920. TYPHUS IN EUROPE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17649, 9 December 1920, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1920. TYPHUS IN EUROPE.

Science has done much to break the fatal association between war and pestilence which persisted down' the ages, but whenever science sleeps and wherever it lacks adequate organisation the association reasserts itself. The epidemic of typhus in Eastern Europe is a case in point. Thanks to the efficiency of preventive medicine the armies engaged in practically all the theatres of war except the Eastern and Balkan fronts escaped serious outbreaks of disease. Even the typhoid group, which in view of past experience was particularly to be dreaded, was completely mastered. From the beginning of the war till the end of 1918 the British Army had only 7423 cases of enteric, with 266 deaths, in an average strength of 1,200,000. In the South African war the Eritish forces, with an average strength of 208,000, had 57,000 cases and 8000 deaths. In the Franco-German war, the Germans, employing 1,146,000 men, had 72,000 cases and 7000 deaths- In the war against Spain the Americans lost IsOO men out of a strength of 107,000. The comparative immunity of the great masses of men engaged in the world war may be ascribed to advances in the methods of water purification, field sanitation, personal hygiene, and the increase in preventive inoculation. The same vigilance kept other dreaded diseases under control. Precise diagnosis and the isolation of all suspects reduced dysentery to a minimum, and malaria, often a terrible scourge of field armies, was fought in such widely-separated Countries as East Africa and Mesopotamia. Disease; was therefore no considerable factor in any ,army supported by an efficient . medical service. When medical services broke down, as they did in Servia during the great retreat,. and in. Russia after the revolution, pestilence, again became a ghostly camp follower and disease eclipsed all the modern machinery of death. The typhus epidemic now threatening Eastern Europe is one evidence of Russia's disorganisation • which even the Bolsheviks are forced to admit and lament. '-, ■■ ■...."..

Official Bolshevik statistics record 1,340,000 cases of typhus in Russia between September, 1918, and' March, 1919. An eminent doctor who has returned to London i from Russia states that the country has been swept from end io end by typhus. Hardly a village has escaped, and half the doctors engaged in combating : the plague have died. From this vast centre of infection the 1 disease has spread to the Ukraine and to Galicia. The Red armies carried it into Poland and the Balkans have not altogether escaped. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the severity. of the epidemic in Russia and some of the neighbouring countries. Thousands are' dying without medical attention, and disinfectants are unprocurable. In the words of Sir William Goode, British Director of Relief, "Men and women are lying in pain without bandages and without sheets, without.drugs for their agony and unable to buy or beg the simple comforts of an English workhouse." Unfortunately the conditions in a great part of Europe are eminently favourable to the rapid spread of such a disease. Populations which are insufficiently nourished, which are suffering under a severe emotional strain, and are enfeebled in their initiative are likely to offer little resistance to an epidemic of the character of typhus. The jposition of the Poles in particular is one of grave peril. A constant stream of refugees is arriving, from Russia. Two million of these unfortunates have passed through the disinfecting stations since the end of 1918, and doubtless many have evaded medical inspection. They are pouring into a country in parts already overcrowded, where every circumstance favours the spread of infection.

It is therefore no ordinary appeal the Assembly of the League of Nations is making in asking for funds to restrict the ravages of typhus. It is proposed to concentrate medical effort chiefly in Poland, which not only has special claims upon the assistance of Western Europe, but is the best medical front as long as Bussia is segregated by her form of government. The League of Nations has already mapped out a plan of campaign -which can be put into operation as funds become available, and which should be sufficient to check the westward spread of the disease. The danger is already an international one, but fortunately medical science, if given a clear field, can control typhus without ve«y. great difficulty. The western portion of Europe has long been practically free from typhus, though the disease has always been endemic in parts of eastern and central Europe. ' It ravaged the continent after the Napoleonic wars and there was a fairly severe epidemic in 1846 and 1847. Typhus has always been associated with war, principally owing to the frequent inability of troops to change their - underclothing. It is most severe during

the winter, and the next few months will be a thorough test of the combative measures put into operation by the League of Nations. The magnitude of the sum, £2,000,000, asked for by the League is a measure, of the greatness of the task in hand- That it can be accomplished successfully with the aid of State endowments and private benevolence is happily hardly open to question.