The Lancet sums up the evidence about the Russian pestilence
as pointing to a new and malignant form of typhus, mixed with relapsing fever, produced by hunger and overcrowding. Typhus is sometimes complicated by carbuncles, 150 such cases having been known in the London Fever Hospital during the last three years, their existence depending apparently upon the state of health of those attacked. It is therefore improbable that the Russian epidemic should be marching westward, as typhus of a very malignant type is already among us. Mr. Horace Jeaffreson, resident medical officer to the London Fever Hospital, states that "3,610 patients," mainly suffering from typhus, were admitted last year, that the disease is on the increase, and that it remains in some localities, such as Draper's Place, St. Pancras, absolutely
endemic. He advises that landlords should be compelled to whitewash houses in such places, and supply them with pure water, the owners at the present moment fiercely obstructing the officers of health.
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