234 THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE ch.

and resistance to disease slowly diminish, 1 but lifeproceeds somehow, until the limit of human endur-

1 For months past the reports of the health conditions iu the CentralEmpires have been of such a character that the imagination is dulled, andone almost seems guilty of sentimentality in quoting them. But theirgeneral veracity is not disputed, and I quote the three following, that thereader may not be unmindful of them : "In the last years of the war, inAustria alone at least 35,000 people died of tuberculosis, in Vienna alone12,000. To-day we have to reckon with a number of at least 300,000 to400,000 people who require treatment for tuberculosis. ... As the resultof malnutrition a bloodless generation is growing up with undevelopedmuscles, undeveloped joints, and undeveloped brain" (Neue Freic Pressc,May 31, 1919). The Commission of Doctors appointed by the MedicalFaculties of Holland, Sweden, and Norway to examine the conditions inGermany reported as follows in the Swedish Press in April 1919:"Tuberculosis, especially in children, is increasing in an appalling way,and, generally speaking, is malignant. In the same way rickets is moreserious and more widely prevalent. It is impossible to do anything forthese diseases ; there is no milk for the tuberculous, and no cod-liver oilfor those suffering from rickets. . . . Tuberculosis is assuming almost un-precedented aspects, such as have hitherto only been known in exceptionalcases. The whole body is attacked simultaneously, and the illness in thisform is practically incurable. . . . Tuberculosis is nearly always fatal nowamong adults. It is the cause of 90 per cent of the hospital cases. Nothingcan be done against it owing to lack of food-stuffs. ... It appears in themost terrible forms, such as glandular tuberculosis, which turns intopurulent dissolution." The following is by a writer in the VossischeZeitung, June 5, 1919, who accompanied the Hoover Mission to theErzgebirge: "I visited large country districts where 90 per cent of allthe children were rickety and where children of three years are onlybeginning to walk. . . . Accompany me to a school in the Erzgebirge. You think it is a kindergarten for the little ones. No, these are childrenof seven and eight years. Tiny laces, with large dull eyes, overshadowedby huge puffed, rickety foreheads, their small arms just skin and bone,and above the crooked legs with their dislocated joints the swollen, pointedstomachs of the hunger oedema. . . . ' You see this child here,' the physicianin charge explained ; * it consumed an incredible amount of bread, and yetdid not get any stronger. I found out that it hid all the bread it receivedunderneath its straw mattress. The fear of hunger was so deeply rooted inthe child that it collected stores instead of eating the food : a misguidedanimal instinct made the dread of hunger worse than the actual pangs.' "Yet there are many persons apparently in whose opinion justice requiresthat such beings should pay tribute until they are forty or fifty years ofage in relief of the British taxpayer.