206 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
for relief from persons suffering from their teeth, it became neces-
sary to employ dentists and open special surgeries for dental treat-
ment. The dispensaries were also helpful in bringing to light not
only cases of infectious disease among the population but more par-
ticularly abdominal troubles. To save the army from the danger of
infection, it was necessary to provide special isolation hospitals and
to organize the campaign against epidemics at the front. It is obvi-
ous that such measures were far beyond the capacity of individual
detachments and, as will be seen farther on, it was left to the higher
institutions of the Zemstvo Union to grapple with this problem.
Nevertheless the detachments did all they could within their limited
facilities, and in the intervals between battles they organized on
their own initiative isolation hospitals. In the reports of the various
detachments we meet with references to the organization not only of
special hospitals for the treatment of cholera, typhoid fever, small-
pox, etc., but even for venereal diseases and eczema.
Epidemic diseases of the intestines made it imperative to adopt
measures for the purification of drinking water and to provide
proper nourishment for those sections of the local population and
refugees who stood in the most urgent need of better food than they
themselves were able to provide.
The result was that long queues of hungry people began to be
seen round the field kitchens of the zemstvo detachments when these
were preparing the food for their soldier patients. These were com-
posed mostly of the children of refugees who had taken up their
abode in the neighboring forests; but they also included hungry lo-
cal residents reduced to distress by the devastation of war. The zem-
stvo detachments thus found themselves compelled to establish large
soup kitchens and to work hard in order to obtain the necessary
provisions.
As regards the purification of the drinking water, the zemstvo
detachments devoted themselves to the cleansing of the wells and
pumps, repairing wherever necessary the plumbing, supplying the
troops with water boilers, and setting up a regular network of can-
teens and tea rooms, where sugar and tea, and sometimes also bread,
was supplied free of charge. In connection with the bathing sta-
tions, tea rooms became almost indispensable, since it was impossible
otherwise to restrain the soldiers after their hot steam bath from
cooling themselves with any kind of water that happened to be
