Evening star., 1912-09-30

-IIe WDEtu Is IuuSl 1'ioCoSSN ~ 49,
armies and navies for the state of its
health. Able to enforce rules ana resu-
lations upon large bodies of men. the
medical officers of thu armies and navies
of the civilized world have been in a
position first to work out their theories
and then to apply them. The results
have proved of incaiculable value in the
fight of humanity against disease and
for a longer lease on life. The sanity
results Of our war with Cuba have been
worth more to humanity than it is pos
siblc to estimate. 1t directly banished
from the category of uncomfortable dis
. eases one Of the worst of all the ills to
which one-half of the human race was
heir. Indirectly il made possible the dig
ging of the Panama canal and the
| "healthization'' of half the earth's sur
face.
Likewise, the protection of the British
soldier demanded that he Should he re-
| leased from the constant warfare of ma
laria, and that called upon the British
army surgeon to determine the cause of
| the disease, and he did not fail to meet
| the demand. The result is that the world
now has it within it's power to put an
| end to one of the most widespread and
! enervating ailments IN the catalogue.
| Then came typhoid fever. Armies in
! the past have lost more good men from
| the ranks from intestinal diseases in gen.
| eral and typhoid fever in particular than
| they have lost from all the cannons and
guns and bayonets. Our own record In
| Cuba and afterward was appalling, and
| other armies have suffered no less. Then
| came the English and the German army
| surgeons in South Africa, and the vacci-
| nation treatment for the prevention of
| typhoid was the result-a treatment that,
| coupled with sanitation, promises to end
| the reign Of typhoid in temperate climes,
as that Of yellow jack has been ended
| in torrid regions The phenomenal rec
| the past fiscal years. when typhoid was
as rare as leprosy. tells the story of its
mastery by medical science.
| Napoleon once remarked that the first
quality of soldier is the power to en-
| 3ure fatigue and
Looking After privation. and that
Soldiers Health. eo1rase onaa Is sc'1ns ohs seu
that principle, the military and naval
men OF the world have been trying to
surround the soldiery with those condi-
tions that would put them and keep them
| in. the pink Of physical shape. 1t was
this same great authority who remarked
that he wanted men. since boys only
served to fill the hospitals and incu,nber
the roadsides. In the campaign leading
to Austerlitz he would take none under
twenty-five. and there never has been a
campaign freer from stragglers or SICK
soldiers. During the Crimean war, the
lcommander.in-ch:efL Lord Raglan, though
in need of recruits. said he preferred to
wait rather than to have 2,G0O boys sent
him.
| 1t is said that the only exception to the
general rule OF military life that an army
loses more men from disease than from
wounds, either in war or in peace, was
that Of the German army in the war OF
1870 with France. During the American
civil war there we're almost exactly twice
as many deaths from disease as from
wounds. There were nearly five times
as many deaths from disease in our war
with Mexico as there were from wounds.