Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-06-16
"THE HE'LL OF WAR;"
Sacrificing of Life In Camp and Gar
rison to Prev entable Diseases.

rison to Preventable Diseases.
THE splendid achievements Of scien-
tific medicine in civil life in the pre-
vention of disease, should be even
more effectually obtained In an army,
where only healthy men are accepted,
and vigorous outdoor camp life should
keep its units, who are subject to strict
military discipline, in perfect physical
condition Health alone, however, is
no guarantee against the insidious at
tack of the silent foe that fingers In
every camp and bivouac," says an ar
ticle in Appleton's. 1T is this foe, as
the records of war for the past two
hundred years have proved, that Is
responsible for four times as many
deaths as the guns Of the enemy, to
say nothing of the vast number tenn
porariy invalided or discharged as un-
fit for duty. 1t Is this dreadful unnec-
essary sacrifice Of life from preventa-
BILE diseases that constitutes the hell of
war today. In the Russo Turkish war,
the deaths from battle casualties were
q, ,O0O while those from disease were
80 900; in our great civil conflict, OF
the nearly 100000 men who perished on
both Sides about 100000 were sacri-
feed to disease to 100000 from battle
casualties.
IN a recent campaign Of the French
in Madagascar $4,000 men were sent
to the front, of whom twenty-nine
were killed in action and more than T.
600 perished from preventable diseases.
In the Boer war in South Africa the
English losses were ten times greater
from disease than from the bullets or
the enemy. In our recent war with
Spain fourteen lives were needlessly
sacrificed to ignorance and incompe-
tency, for every man who died on the
firing line or from the result OF wounds.
1.-The difference between the martyr
and the victim, between the soldier
who falls on the field Of honor, and the
man who meets a miserable death from
preventable disease, for which his gov
ernment Is criminally responsible, Is as
wide as the celestial diameters. The
one meets death compensated in the
thought that his life Is given In the
protection Of his country's flag and
honor the other is ignominiously forced
to his grave through the neglect OF the
government that shamefully failed to
protect the life he offered in its de-
fense. This man represents the victim
Of the hell Of war.
THAT the monstroucs sacrifice OF
eighty per cent is almost totally un-
necessary, was abundantly proved IN
the records OF the Japanese war,
where 100000 men were sent to the
front. in a country notoriously Unsan-
itary, and only $1,000 men died from
disease to $4,000 who fell in the legiti-
mate line of duty on the field Of honor
This because the Japanese had pro-
perly equipped medical and sanitary
department, whose officers were en-
powered to enforce proper sanitation
and hygiene. In the army OF the
United States in 1898, Z,o45 plckeu SUI
diers died in three months in the pest
camps of their native land without
leaving the country, or ever having
heard the hum of a hostile bullet.
These men represent the hell Of war
as 1t would exist again in our army If
we were suddenly called upon to face
an enemy who Is prepared to meet u.s."