A City of the Dead.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXXI, Issue 70, 11 October 1920, Page 5

A City of the Dead.

PETROCRAD’S POPULATION. «. RED CROSS MAN’S APPEAL. Press Association—Copyright, Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received 9 a.m.) London, October 9. Professor Zeidlir, a former head of the Pfetrograd Hod Cross, who is now refuging in Finland, has appealed to the American Red Cross for help for the Petrograd population, which, he says, i 8 rapidly decaying. On© of the nationalised woodyards is entirely occupied in manufacturing coffins, making 3,000 monthly, which ar e insufficient. The startling mortality is due to the starvation diet and the entire absence of fat, giving their faces a wax-like pallor r sembling a City of the Dead. People consume enormous quantities of substitutes for tea. quel coffee, and plain water in order to fill their stomachs and indue© satiety,' causing bloated and distorted features and causing dropsy and puffiness. The city is indescribably filthy. The principal mortal diseases are spotted fever, typhus, dysentery, and smallpox. The hospitals and clinics are overflowing. The Ministry of Health recently Ordered the mobilisation of all the doctors to combat disease, but as the. troops are affeced with spotted fever and intermittent typhus the situation is thus complicated, necessitating three of the largest hospitals being devoted to the sole rise of the Troops.

Improper feeding greatly i creases the mortality in the hospitals. B ack bread, frozen cabbage, and herrings form the principal diet, those who lire very ill receiving hors -flesh beef tea, and gruel. No eggs or milk are available. The doctors declare that scientific life has been destroyed, and it is impossible to obtain chemicals, medicines, and surgical instruments.