CHAPTER X
public health
Before going to Russia I was warned by people I met in Scandinavia and Finland that disease of every sort and kind was raging in both Petrograd and Moscow ; that it was sheer madness on my part to go into the country without previously being inoculated against half-a-dozen diseases. As it turned out I was not inoculated and am thankful to say I left Russia quite healthy, and during my month’s stay was not attacked by any of the prevailing diseases.
There is no doubt at all that many thousands of people have suffered, and many thousands have died of typhus, spotted typhus and diphtheria. It is also true that many thousands more will die this spring when the thaw lets loose the accumulated mass of refuse and dirt which has been collected in frozen heaps in the backyards and other parts of the big cities. It needs to be pointed out that most of the big houses in Moscow are central heated, and thus
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