THE TYPHUS PLAGUE IN RUSSIA.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2888, 18 May 1878, Page 4

THE TYPHUS PLAGUE IN RUSSIA.

Recent intelligence from various sources reveal a frightful condition of public health in Kussia. At the present moment there is scarcely a district in European Russia that is not afflicted with typhus fever in its most virulent form. At St. Petersburg the mortality has increased 25 per cent. from typhus alone, hundreds of sufferers in the suburbs are unable to be received in the hospitals, and the professional staff of the latter institutions have been infected with the disease.likewise—seven doctors, fifteen surgeons, and-thirty hospital assistants peing at present inscribed upon the typhus list. General Strandman, inspector of hospitals, is also dangerously ill with the same fever. At Viatka, since the 670 Turkish prisoners arrived at the town a month ago, 300 have entered the hospital and 100 are dead. The prisoners, in passing through the country on their way to the place of internment, spread infection to the villages, and in one district are stated to have occasioned 190 people to be seized with typhus fever. At Xische neff the authorities have issued an order forbidding people to approach the Turkish prisoners. At Bobruisk the commandant of the fortress has adopted stronger measures, having turned all the Turks outside the town, and refused to allow any more to be interned within his district. From Balta the intelligence comes that a convoy of prisoners,-300 strong, passed, through that town last week, not one of whom was free from fever. The authorities, adopting the practice prevalent elsewhere, billeted them upon the inhabitants, and thereby spread the disease in every house. So callous are the, authorities in South Russia to the feelings of the civil inhabitants, that one householder had to provide lodgings for one week for six invalid soldiers billeted upon him, two of whom had thts small-pox and: the remainder typhus fever.. Innumerable instances similar to this have takeri place elsewhere, causing frightful mortality among the population. At Revel, thirty-eight Turkish prisoners are reported to have died in one day. At Kazan, typhus has broken out at the Convent dcs Demoiselles, where the daughters of the noblesse are educated. _ At Kiprekoi, in Armenia, the mortality among the Russian troops is forty a day., In the Caucasus, between Tiflis and "Vladikavkaz, the number of patients dispersed among the various hospitals exceeds 5000. Double that number have passed through Tiflis oh their way to Russia, The medical staff, thinned by disease as much as the army itself, is utterly unable to cope with the pestilence. In Zariesk, a town; of 7000 inhabitants, near Kars, only one doctor is left to attend the sick, who are dying in every house, and he, with another colleague, are the only,doctors alive in a district comprising 115*000 people. The " sanitary trains " inaugurated by the Russian Red Cross Society are worse than useless, as they play an important part in spreading the disease. Awakened at last into activity by the frightful condition into which Russia has been thrown by the indiscriminate distribution of 100,000 invalids afflicted with infectious diseases over the most populous parts of the Empire, the Government has appointed a commission to report upon the best measures to take under the circumstances. As, however, the pestilence is no longer confined to the Russian soldiers and Turkish prisoners, but has spread among all classes of the population, it is considered that the action of the Government has commenced too lite to be effective in checking the pro-

gress of the contagion. A later telegram states that GSenernl Heymann, who commatided the [Russian army at the victory of Aladja jDagh, is ill with the typhus fever, and is not expected to recover. Genera! Shclkovnikoff, Governor of the Evzeroum district, who was taken ill at the same time as General Heymann is dead.