Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1920 — MANY ILL WITH DEADLY TYPHUS [ARTICLE]

MANY ILL WITH DEADLY TYPHUS

Two Million Cases in Russia— Conditions in Poland Appalling. U. S. REIIEF BOARD SWAMPED Several of Ite Officers and Men Have Died, Among Them One In Charge at Tarnopol—Shortage of Supplies. Warsaw. —General Petlura’s Ukrainian government, which, .despite its amazing weakness, remains the nearest approach to organized authority that exists between the East -Galician frontier and the Dnieper, has sent its minister of public works, Mr. Bezalko, to Warsaw to'appeal for assistance in fighting the incredible typhus conditions in the Petlura country. He reports that 10,000 men, the remnants of Petlura’s Ukrainian force, have been stricken with the disease and that the 80,000 men of the East Galieian army, commanded by Pavlenko, who from time to time have co-operated wjth Petlura, are in an almost equally bad plight. About half the cases have proved fatal. Hands Are Occupied.

It Is virtually certain that'the Poles will not be able to give assistance to the Ukrainians because their hands are more than occupied in combating the spread of the disease in Poland. There is some typhus in Warsaw 5,000 cases perhaps; Dvinsk, recently captured from the bolshevikl, is in an appalling condition; the epidemic has swept in virulent form as far west as Cracow, where the normal activities are half paralyzed; in most of the villages on the eastern frontiers more than half the inhabitants are sick and there is a disturbing amount of typhus in the army. Where 20 fumigating machines are needed, the Poles have one; where a gallon of carbolic acid is required they have a gill. The American typhus commission, which, with 5,000 men and 750 officers, came here last summer to prepare to combat the disease this winter, has been overwhelmed; even the vast supplies the commission brought have proved insufficient. Several officers and men of the commission have died. Including a colonel who was in charge of the work at Tarnopol. So there is small prospect that Petlura can find any help here. „ Reliable reports Indicate that soviet Russia is being devastated by the disease. In the recent exchange of prisoners between the Poles and the bolshevikl, there arrived here a Doctor Czechowltz, who over a year ago was impressed into the bolshevik service as a sanitary expert and assigned to the work of dealing with typhus. He says that in March of last year there were 1,340,000 known cases of typhus in bolshevik Russia and that conditions this year are worse than last "year. He estimates that there are now at least 2,000,000 cases In Russia. The soviet government has almost no facilities for controlling the disease and comparatively few physicians are

available to care for the sick. In consequence the percentage of deaths is now enormous, Czechowitz says. Usually Follows War. Such an epidemic as the present one almost inevitably follows a period of war in central Europe. It is to be attributed to s Insufficient food supplies, weakening the resistance of the people, and to lack of clothing, frequently making cleanliness difficult even for the moderately well-to-do and impossible for the poor. A common assertion Is that typhus is as great a menace to social quiet as bolshevism. But competent observers here do not believe this. The people of this part of the world, they argue, have come through centuries to accept the peril of typhus as an unescapable concomitant of life. Certainly from Poles one hears little outcry at present conditions; it is only those who have known Western civilization who are shocked by the spread and virulence of the The Polish cabinet has reached no decision on the proposal to quarantine the country and It is hoped that suspension of the railroad service for

two weeks, because of the coal crisis, may'have a favorable effect upon the typhus situation, which could never have attained the proportions It has if travel had been supervised and restricted a month ago.