The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1915-04-20
Is, ZOO to 10000 Cases of
Typhus, Rockefeller Com
mission Reports
OTHER FEVERS ALSO
IN EPIDEMIC FORM
Cholera Expected with the Warmer
Spring Weather-The Nation Is Alb
sorbed in the Conduct of War and I'm
able to Aid Itself.

NEW YORK, April 10. - The Rock
efeller Foundation has made public the
first installment of the report of the
Rockefeller Foundation war relief com
mission concerning conditions in Ser
via. The head of the commission is
DR.. Wickliffe Rose. In part the install
ment reads:
AT the present time typhus, typhoid.
and recurrent fever are epidemic in
Servia. Smallpox and scarlet fever are
also present in some communities Uhol-
era is expected with the warmer wealth
Ell of spring.
".Servia knows from experience the
terrors of these diseases; but with all
her energies concentrated on war for
her existence, with her physicians and
her men of strength and prominence in
the army, with her resources exhausted
and lacking adequate leadership for the
sanitary emergency, she can do little to
save herself.
1t is safe to say that the three cpl
demic diseases are distributed through
out the country. We found all three
of these diseases in the communities
we visited and in all the larger hos
pitfalls In Nish an English physician
stated that it was his belief that hun
dred patients We're dying of typhus
daily. One day during the visit Of this
commission it was reported that the
cemetery at Nish contained $50 I'M
| buried bodies Of typhus victims, the
force of grave diggers being unable TO
| keep up with the work.
| Tn Belgrade in one hospital were los
cases of typhus, with larger appre-
gate number in several other hospitals
In Skopje DR.. Barrie, an English
physician who has been in Skopje sew
eral months at the head of medical
mission Of the British Red Cross, est
mated the number of typhus cases on
Feb. "a at 1000.
Valievo, town in that part of Ser
via which was for time held by the
Austrian army, is reported to be the
most serious center of the epidemic OF
/ typhus. The people who fed from the
| invading armies are said to have found
their homes generally infected on then
return. Substantially the entire civil
ian population there are involved i:
the disease.
/ Without medical care, with no di
rection or resources for setting on foo
sanitary measures, remote and helpless
the population is BEND deeimated, while
the epidemic spreads in rapidly widen
ing circles. Every community on mail
lines of travel is in the clutches o
typhus.
Into the mountain places and tn
villages distant from the railroads tn
disease is being carried by the MOVING
troops and bullock drivers and by tn
straw-lined carts in which the sick an
well are transported, and it is said t
be prevalent in most of them already
The Servian government is absorbe
IN the conduct of the war; its usua
staff of civil employees is too much de
pleted by the demands of the militar
service for it to turn, attention to til
gathering of statistics, but estimate
based on inadequate information plac
the total number of typhus cases
Servia at $4,000 to 10000. While thes
figures must not be regarded as othe
than largely conjectural, we heard n
one express an opinion that they al
seriously in excess of the truth.