CHOLERA IN RUSSIA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3040, 10 November 1908, Page 4

CHOLERA IN RUSSIA.

The recent epidemic of cholera in St. Petersburg was the result of dirt and ignorance. Indeed, the wonder is that there were not more victims. The London "Daily Mail's" correspondent presents a terrible picture of the insanitary condition of parts of the city. The canals which intersect St. Petersburg receive most of the drainage of the town, but in many places furnish the only drinking water. Owing to a stoppage of the system of removing garbage, thousands of tons of refuse accumulated, and afforded excellent homes for bacilli. Many of the people in the poor quarters live in horribly filthy surroundings. Seme of them live in damp, underground cellars, into which no light ever penetrates. The poor distrusted the doctors, and charlatans reaped a rich harvest from the credulous, who preferred conjurings and incantations to the treatment of skilled men. Quacks, who sold magic water with which to sprinkle the walls of dwellings and so drive away evil spirits, did a huge business. The poor refused to abstain from drinking unboiled water or eating raw fruit and vegetables (the chief source of infection), and would consent neither to the isolation of patients, the disinfection of premises, the. speedy interment of the dead, nor the inoculation of the threatened.