Lo)
THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
Number of Cases of Infectious Diseases in the Army.
Recur-
Typhoid rent Dysen- Small-
fever Typhus typhus tery Cholera pox
Periods
{August-December)
1914
1915
1916
(January-September)
1917
Scurvy
13,988 271 35 7,581 8,758 3802 90
56,583 4,827 4,333 14,251 20,589 1,286 770
19.406 7.725 27.958 26,722 1,343 743 178.250
7,650 8,270 43,103 15,760 120 377 283,646
Total 97.522 21,098 75,429 64,264 30,810 2,708 862,756
In addition, 188,241 scurvy patients received treatment at the dis-
pensaries attached to their regiments.”
Even if we disregard the scurvy cases, these figures will be found
less favorable than those of the ratios indicated in hospital reports
from the interior of the country. But we must remember that a large
proportion of the sick, namely, 44.8 per cent remained in the war
zone, whereas 83.3 per cent of the wounded were evacuated to the
interior. It is natural, therefore, that the sick, including cases of
infectious diseases, should have constituted in hospitals in the in-
terior, a smaller percentage than in all the military hospitals of the
country, both at the front and in the interior, taken together.
However, even the figures mentioned above have been considered
by competent observers to be comparatively favorable. In any case,
the policy of the Minister of the Interior in the matter of combating
epidemics led to no tragic results.” It did, however, lead to extraor-
dinary diversity in the steps taken by the zemstvos, producing a
lack of cobrdination, unnecessary expenditure, and at times also un-
warranted measures. In each province, and often in each district,
large conferences would be held which decided matters as they saw
fit. The reports of local committees present a picture of the most
bewildering variety of anti-epidemic measures, from the construc-
tion of quite substantial buildings for isolation hospitals to the
distribution of literature about the best means of combating the
27 Trudi (Proceedings) of the Commission for the Investigation of the
Effects on Public Health of the War of 1914-1920, Moscow, 1923, p. 176.
28 Jawestia (Bulletin), No. 10, p. 59.
