The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-07
REPORT OF GREELEY
SURGEON-GENERAL TELLS OF THE
 ARMY'S CONDITION.
Bad Habits of American Soldier Largely Responsible for His Physical
 Downfall-An Exhaustive
 Paper. .r

Washington. Oct. 6.-Surgeon-Gen- eral R. M. O'Reilly of the army has submitted an exhaustive report on all the conditions of the army to Secretary Taft. The report says that the enlisted strength of the army as shown upon the army reports, was 5S.740, and on the returns of the military secretary, 60,139, and calculations are made up on the latter figures. There were 79,- 586 admissions to the sick report" dur ing the year, 406 deaths from all causes and 1877 discharged from dis ability. The figures. he says. show a steady and progressive improvement in the health of the army. The report says that by far the most important diseases affecting the efficiency of the army during the year have been those resulting from immoral habits, which caused 16 per cent of all admissions. This class of disease advanced from third to first place in number of admis- sions to the sick report. There were constantly on sick report for this class of diseases 715 men, equal to the loss for the entire year of the service of eleven full companies of infantry.
 The control of these diseases" says General O'Reilly, Ties largely in the hands of the civil authorities and one of the most important steps to that end would appear to be chasing them with other infectious diseases and the re- Quirement that they shall be reported as such and controlled by health de- partments.
 Tn the military service a similar course should be followed.
 As to the cause of deaths, pneu- monia advanced to first place and tu- berculosis second.
 There were POS admissions for gun shot wounds, with forty-four deaths and 2,S5O admissions for wounds other than gunshot, with fifteen deaths. Twenty-one men were killed in action and forty-two wounded; of the killed two were by gunshot; of the wounded twenty eight were by gunshot. There were forty-five soldiers drowned. II per cent of the total deaths from all causes. indicating how important 1t is that all soldiers should have systematic in -struction in swimming Twenty-seVen soldiers committed suicide; ten deaths due to homicide
 Notwithstanding that a large part of the army was serving in the tropics there was no admission for snake bite.
 The strength of officers was 3,42l from the medical department, reports and 3,Sl5 from the military secretary. There were 2,276 admissions. twenty seven deaths"
 Comparisons with foreign armies show that the highest rate of admis- sions Is in the American army and the lowest in the Russian. The highest death rate was in the American army, and the lowest in the Prussian. The highest effective rate was in the American army and the lowest in the Prussian. Regarding these facts. Gen eral O'Reilly says:
 The very high proportion for alco- holism in the American army as com pared with that of the British is partly due to the fact that In the latter ser wee only admissions to hospitals are counted. In is notable that while the British have less than half the Ameri- can admission rate for dysentery. their death rate Is practically the same and that while their ratio of admission Tor malaria Is about the same, their death rate Is nearly three times as great. The American admission rate for malaria Is nearly eighty times that of the French while the death rate is only five times as great. These facts point to difference in the method of comput- ing admissions. The figures for niea- sles and humps compare very unfavor"