Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-06-18
JAPAN SHAMES THE WORLD.


Serious and enlightened members
OF the medical profession always have
treated the medical department OF
the United States army as joke
But when We tried to put an army in
the field in 1898 comedy became most
CHASTITY tragedy.
The medical department was so
little able to look after the health
of the army in camp or field that it
melted away in the breath of fever
like frost in the sun Typhoid, dysen-
terry and other preventable diseases
raVaged our home camps worse than
hostile army. The cream of our reg.
ular forces, sent to take Santiago,
mad TO leave their horses and half
thelr baggage and artillery behind.
carry the outer Notifications by front
al attack without roads. ambllances
or HOSPITALS to care for the wounded
and then call upon the fleet to com
plete the capture of the city before
they should all drop in their tracks
from fever.
The capture of Santiago was a
race with time and death. Had it
been delayed, the seige must have
been raised and the fever stricken
| army brough home as was done soon
after. Meanwhile troops in Chicka.
manga and Tampa were dying like
flies. The army was saved only by
disbanding it. But for the sound
minds in sound bodies of the navy
We should have made an awful mess
of that war. For every life lost IN
action, fourteen hundred were sacr!-
feed by preyentable disease.
We have commented before on ia
pans brilliant record in maintaining
the health of troops in the field. Now
we have official reports from the
| chief surgeon of General Ollus army.
the largest and the first in the field
The army had lost in action over
10000 men, killed, wounded ami
missing; but 65 per cent of the IL
600 wounded were able to be sent
home to the Japanese hospital. There
have been over $4,000 cases OF dis
ease, of which only 40 resulted fatally
and less than 5000 were serious
enough to be sent to the home hos
pital.
In all there were less than 600
cases of typhoid and dysentary the
| traditional rayages of an army in the
held, General Oku's army was about
the size of that pars of ours which
went TO the front in 1898. He lost 40
men by disease where we lost $500
in the field and as many more in our
filthy home camps. We are not much
worse than other civilized nations
| The British lost more men by dis
ease than by action in South Africa
and continental armies operating
! oversee always have been decimated
by disease.
The secret of Japan's immunity i
| that she has applied medical aud
! surgical knowledge gained from us
We make discovery of means to care
for wounded and prevent or cure
| disease. We are content to deliver
! lectures and write books about them
without applying them to save the
lives of troops in war. Japan takes
! our discoveries and applies them in
such a way as to save thousands of
soldiers to continue the struggle and
end the war.
This triumph of Japan is the dis
grace of all nations II will be to the
eternal disgrace of any nation that
shall again go to war without a medic.
al equipment approximately equal to
that of Japan AS for our own nation,
We think if it should call for yolun
teer enlistments again with the medt
cal department in it's disgracefuL con-
dition, it would be the duty of the
whole press and public to discourage
enlistments and resist CONSUMPTION.
1t is every mans duty to die for
his country when necessary. 1t is no
citizens duty to rot in fever camp
for a government too indolent to APP
ply common medical knowledge for
the safety of its troops.