The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-05-04
TYPHOID FEVER


washington. May 3.-The session of
the Association of American Physi-
clans at the Arlington to-day was
! marked by an important paper on 'Ty-
phoid in the Volunteer Camps" by DR..
V. c. Vaughn, one of the board of sur
geons appointed by Surgeon General
Sternberg last summer to look into this
matter when the epidemic of typhoid
was prevalent in the various army
camps. The board made very
thorough study of the subject and its
report has been looked forward to as
an authoritative work. The report Is
not yet completed, but DR.. Vaughns
paper was in the nature of an advance
statement with the sanction oflGeneral
Sternberg, who was present at the
meeting.
DR.. Vaughn's paper was a severe ar
raignment of the volunteer surgeons,
and incidentally of the officers who
were responsible for the policing of the
great camps at Jacksonville, Chicka-
mauga, Camp Alger and Montauk
Point. The board visited all these
points and found that not only was
there a great deal more typhoid than
was at first supposed but that the sur
geons, mostly of the volunteer class,
were from ignorance or other motive
treating and reporting typhoid under
the names Of persistent malaria lin
digestion" gastric fever" and 'typho-
malaria" Blood examination of many
OF the malaria" patients failed to
show the presence of the malaria bacil-
us, but there was every indication of
well marked typhoid. These patients
were being treated with quinine and
naturally either died or had to be sent
to city hospitals, where their disease
was properly diagnosed.
The board made an extra careful ex-
animation Of the water supply OF the
various camps and found that the prev
alence of typhoid could not be laid to
impure water in any large degree. The
explanation, Dr. Vaughn said, was in
the disgustingly filthy condition of the
camps where the excreta of typhoid
patients were strewn broadcast with no
apparent effort either to sterilize them
or collect them so as to prevent their
spreading contagion to the remainder
or the camp. The final report of the
board will deal largely with sanitary
for the governing of camps
and the best form of sterilizing appa-
ratus to use in case of fever outbreaks
surgeon General Sternberg of the
army said that it certainly seemed
after the lessons of the civil
war, that our camps should have been
by typhoid which we knew SO |
well. He had issued circular to all
medical officers pointing out the dan !
gers IN this regard and explaining how
they might be avoided. General stern 4
berg referred to the appointment Of vol |
lnteer medical army officers by the |
governors of states, the former thereby
becoming responsible for the health of
our camps. The result had been unsat-
sfactory. 1t did seem to him to be in
consistent that we should set ourselves
Up to show the Spaniards how to erad-
cate yellow fever from their cities, /
While our camps were infected seriously /
With typhoid He declared that any
adverse conditions which prevailed at
Montauk should not be held against the
'egular army medical officers, few OF
whom We're there
DR.. George Dock of the University of
Michigan spoke of his investigations at
he Sternberg General hospital. The
regarding the sylnp-
oms of typhoid and overestimation of
he effect of quinine formed, DIR. Dock
leclared the striking faults of the med
cal seYvice Most of the volunteer :
medical officers went to camp with the
xpectation Of finding no end of mala-
ia. In one regiment each man was
rovided with two hundred grains Of
uinine and a three-ounce bottle Of
The great bulk Of supposed
Malaria cases were not malarial infec-
ions at all, but many of the doctors,
egardless of this, dosed their patients
With thirty to forty grains of quinine
ach day.