THE tasks of the Commissariat for Public Health have been extraordinarily heavy and full of responsibilities, but, in spite of all, we have succeeded in the main in overcoming the plagues and epidemics which had their cause in the famine, although in the Ukraine and in some of the eastern districts dysentery, typhus, cholera and small-pox are again breaking out. But in every respect the worst consequences of the famine are to be seen in their effect on child life. In the cases of these plagues the organism of children has to put up a much greater power of resistance to enable it to recover than is the case with adults. Russia has always had the sad notoriety of possessing the highest rate of infant mortality in the world. The death-rate in the case of young children is as high as 25 per cent. In consequence of the famine, this rose to 32 per cent. In the course of 1922, thanks to the energetic efforts of the Soviet Government and workers’ and foreign organisations, we were able to
Writings in Anthropology & Public Health