of last winter, in the case I have in mind, there were no
means of heating the other rooms, where the temperature
was almost always far below freezing point. It is difficult to
make the conditions real except by individual examples. The
lack of medicines, due directly to the blockade, seems to
have small effect on the imagination when simply stated as
such. Perhaps people will realize what it means when
instead of talking of the wounded undergoing operations

without anesthetics I record the case of an acquaintance, a
Bolshevik, working in a Government office, who suffered
last summer from a slight derangement of the stomach due
to improper and inadequate feeding. His doctor
prescribed a medicine, and nearly a dozen different
apothecaries were unable to make up the prescription for
lack of one or several of the simple ingredients required.
Soap has become an article so rare (in Russia as in Germany
during the blockade and the war there is a terrible absence of
fats) that for the present it is to be treated as a means of
safeguarding labor, to be given to the workmen for washing
after and during their work, and in preference to miners,
chemical, medical and sanitary workers, for whose
efficiency and health it is essential. The proper washing of
underclothes is impossible. To induce the population of
Moscow to go to the baths during the typhus epidemic, it
was sufficient bribe to promise to each person beside the
free bath a free scrap of soap. Houses are falling into
disrepair for want of plaster, paint and tools. Nor is it
possible to substitute one thing for another, for Russia's
industries all suffer alike from their dependence on the West,