Nor is this by any means an over-statement of the case. In European Russia the weakness in productive ages is such that whereas in Great Britain the proportion of persons alive between the ages of fifteen and sixty is 548 in the thousand, and in Belgium 518, in Russia it barely reaches 265. It is computed that in the government of Pultava alone, by no means a populous district, not less than one hundred thousand persons are absolutely disabled by various chronic complaints. Out of the forty-nine millions of the laboring class, the "raw material" of the Russian army, fully fifty per cent. are practically unfit to serve. The statistics of the average duration of human life are even more terribly significant. In England and Northern Germany, according to the best authorities, every man lives, on an average, about 40 years; in Southern Germany, 38 years; and in France, 36. In Russia, on the other hand, the average, even in the healthiest regions (i.e. the north and west), varies from 27 to 22 years. Along the banks of the Volga and in the south-east provinces generally, where the conditions of life are less favorable, the proportion falls as low as 20 years, while in the governments of Perm, Viatka and Orenburg it is only 15.
In whatever way this glaring evil may be explained away by native apologists, it really springs from two very simple causes—insufficient wages and popular ignorance. The miserably low scale of wages among the artisans of the great towns has long since become proverbial, but in the agricultural districts matters are even worse. The ordinary wages of the Russian "field-hand" are as follows: Laborers by the day, 37½ kopecks (about 25 cents) per diem; by the month, 23 kopecks (15 cents); by the season, 17 kopecks (11 cents); in harvest, 75 kopecks (half a dollar). For this pittance the peasants toil from twelve to fifteen, and often sixteen, hours a day; and, thanks to their insufficient food, the constant strain soon begins to tell. A few seasons of such overwork and their strength breaks down altogether, while, instead of the substantial diet needed to recruit it, their scanty fare is still further diminished by the countless fasts of the Greek Church, occurring twice, or even thrice, a week. Hence, upon the first outbreak of fever or cholera the poor creatures perish helplessly, thousands upon thousands, while the St. Petersburg fashionables, yawning over the printed death-roll, languidly wonder why the lower classes are so careless of their health. Nor are the calamities entailed by superstition less deplorable than those which spring from poverty. Those who have seen, in the villages of the interior, new-born infants plunged in ice-cold water which it would be thought sacrilege to warm; children of four and five running about on a bitter day in the fall of the year with no clothing but a light linen shirt; cholera-stricken peasants refusing the medicines offered them; and women employed in hard field-labor three days after their confinement,—can easily credit the statement, frightful as it is, that at least fifty, and in some cases eighty-three, per cent. of the children born in the provinces die in their infancy, and that the population of certain districts has diminished fully one-third during the past generation.
D.K.
SOCIETIES OF HEALTH.
That an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure has passed into a proverb, and yet there is no doubt that the majority of the cases of sickness, general ill health and debility, especially with women, arise from a disregard of the simplest rules for health. But how shall the people learn these rules unless they are taught them? and who so well fitted to teach them as the doctors?
Does any one say that it is against the interest of the doctors to prevent disease? The reply would be that such a conception of the medical profession is a very low one; for doctors were men before they acquired their profession, and there is little doubt that they would find their profession a much more agreeable, and possibly a more profitable, one if, as in China, they were paid for keeping their patients well, instead of for curing, or trying to cure, them when they are sick.
At least such a conception of his office has occurred to Dr. George Dutton of Springfield, Mass., and he has been engaged for some years in attempting to have the idea practically introduced in that city. About two years ago he started a Society of Health there with a few members. The members, who have now reached about fifty, pay him two dollars each a year for advice and one dollar for the expenses of the society. Whenever they need his services they call upon him and get his advice gratis, or he calls upon them at their homes for half price. But this is the smallest part of the innovation. By the agreement Dr. Dutton binds himself to give them a free lecture once a month upon matters of hygiene and cognate subjects, either serving as lecturer himself or obtaining the services of some competent person for the same duty. When the society was first formed it was made a part of the agreement that the members should annually elect their consulting physician, but so far the society has preferred to elect Dr. Dutton to this position.
In these days of enforced combinations for economy there is no reason why such societies of health should not multiply, to the manifest benefit of all parties concerned.
E.H.