Travels in Southeastern Europe

The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.

148 THEBURDEN OF THE BALKANS. times almost the whole party slept in the room, sometimes they didn't. It depended how many rooms there were. I believe I was generally favoured with the company of the more exalted. To detail the tramp from house to house, the inspection of flour-bins and blankets, and the search for disease, the dull monotony of misery in every village, would weary the reader. I will mention only the more striking events of the tour. Four villages had small-pox. In this almost unvaccinated land you have small-pox before you are five, and either die or are afterwards immune. No doctor visits these outlying parts. No precautions of any kind are taken to prevent the disease spreading, and the family shares the blanket of the patient. I had conscientious scruples about carrying infection myself at first, but came to the conclusion that in the general mix-up one more or less could make no difference. I found few adult cases; those were of a virulent type, semi-conscious, and with confluent pocks. The epidemic was passing over, and the surviving children were beginning to run about scarred, but recovering. The doctor, indeed, who was sent up, on my report, to vaccinate around the infected area, said it could hardly be called an epidemic; there had not been more than thirty deaths in any place. I thought of the people at home, who are afraid to ride in a St. John's Wood omnibus if they hear of a case at Willesden, and smiled. The small-pox chase, in fact, was not without a
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About this Item

Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 148
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001
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"The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2025.
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