The Pale Horseman

In the breakneck race of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse across convulsed and shattered Europe, the one on the pale horse has come up to run neck & neck with Famine. His name is Pestilence.

Last fortnight UNRRA announced that all infectious diseases had doubled or trebled in Europe. It pictured the situation as "darker than 1918," when epidemics were beginning which within two years had swept away millions of people.

Already 500 cases of lice-borne typhus (more serious than the flea-borne type) have been discovered in the western cities overrun by U.S. troops. The German concentration camp of 60,000 near Hanover is typhus-infected. According to a New York Times report, advancing British troops last week were giving the camp a wide berth. An infinitely greater danger is expected in Germany's heart, where as early as 1943 German doctors were battling 5,000 cases. To arrest the spread of infection, the Allies have abandoned plans to hasten released Allied prisoners to the west side of the Rhine, and are holding them for delousing before they cross the river. The French have decreed compulsory anti-typhus vaccination for all people aged 10 to 50.

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