THREAT TO THE WORLD

Waikato Times, Volume 93, Issue 14536, 7 December 1920, Page 9

THREAT TO THE WORLD

DISEASES OF MID-EUROPE. Medical authorities in England are telling tiie public emphatically that If humanity does not have a successful light against the diseases of MidEurope, the diseases of Mid-Europe will have a fight against humanity throughout the world. Mid-Europe has more than enough diseases of the body, diseases of the mind, diseases of the soul, to spread suffering and death through' the world in such epidemics as many countries, including New Zealand, suffered two years ago. .\part altogether from humanitarian sentiment, the instinct of self-preser-vation obliges the world as a whole to help in checking the devastating diseases of Mid-Europe. There typhus, tuberculosis, and oilier pestilences are the busy servants ol Death. Colonel Gilchrist, who is in charge of a detachment of American sanitary troops working In Poland, reported a few months ago:—"From the present indications, Poland is going to experience the worst typhus fever epidemic in the history of the world, which, unless blocked at once, will prove a clanger that will threaten thu whole of Europe. The epidemic which for the fourth year in succession has been raging throughout Poland, has increased in intensity each year owing primarily to the large influx of refugees and prisoners of war from Russia . It is a known fact lliat commanders of the Bolshevik armies are ridding themselves ot typhus cases by sending them in armoured cars to the Polish border. There the*y are unloaded and allowed to drift for themselves into Polish territory. 9 "Poland is a rampart against the dangers of this disoase, which threatens the world, if Europe is allowed In be thoroughly saturated, lit in one of the world's sj. strophes. ,' Hie 12 medical officers in Tarn... .1 Hospital, 10 have given up their lives for Hie cause. The mortality this year is estimated at from 45 to GO per cent. No one knows how many —crrsiTsrrxf - ' typnus fTiere are in Poland. The disease is everywhere. It is believed by those well informed that the mortality from this disease will amount to hundreds and thousands of cases." Reports from the disease-smitten districts of Poland, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Jugo-Slavia, Serbia, Hungary, and Austria show a pathetic and alarming shortage of doctors, nurses, and equipment, to fight 'the deadly epidemics. Here are typical messages:—Major Lfiderrey, of the American Army, reports terrible destitution throughout the Ukraine. The country is overrun with vermin. There is one doctor to every 20,000 or 30,000 inhabitants, but they have no resources for dealing with their patients. Spotted typhus and recurrent fever have ravaged the country, and many villages have lost 10 to 15 per cent of their population. The suffering's of the children have been the worst. Children under seven years of age are not to be found. The epidemics, in the absolute lack of means., of fighting them, continually spread more widely. Captain Burnier, delegate of the International Red Gross Committee, who visited Hungary recently, reports that at Szolnok the municipal hospital is absolutely without medicaments; operations are performed without anaesthetics, and only paper bandages are available. When Lady Muriel Paget visited Czecho-Slovakia, about the middle of this year, she found no hospital in such a large town as Turzovka, with a population of 300,000. Lady Muriel established a hospital of 30 beds (one per 10,000 of population). Typhus and tuberculosis were then so prevalent that they were described as "a terrible scourge." "Eighty per cent diseased," ''Bo to 85 per cent diseased," are the sad figures that appear in the reports about children. Weakened by famine and disease, they have a pitiless winter upon them now. Is there a man* woman, or child unwilling to help in giving some Christmas good CTreer to those little sufferers?