The Prescott daily news., 1914-05-07
DISEASE DANGERS OF MEXICAN
INVASION

invasion of Mexican territory. The
question naturally arises, What are
the disease dangers which will con
front American soldiers in Mexico ?
1t has long since passed into a truism
that in war, disease kills more than
bullets. Will this prove true in n
Mexican war? The increased know
ledge of preventive medicine since the
Spanish-Americar War has encourag-
ed the belief that the mortality from
disease will be materially lessened.
To what extent is the belief justified.
and what are the diseases from which
our troops may suffer in tropical
country and from which they should
be protected? These questions, which
have probably been in the minds of
many of our people during the last
few weeks, are answered in a recent
issue of The Journal of the Ameri-
can Medical Association.
Aside from the ordinary diseases
which might prevail among any body
of two or three hundred thousand men.
there are certain diseases to which
soldiers in camp and in the field are
particularly exposed. These are es-
pecially smallpox, typhoid fever and
dysentery. Smallpox may be disre-
garded, as any troops sent into Mex
leo will be immune from this disease
through vaccination. Typhoid fever,
lin the past. has been the awful scourge
of military camps. The appalling ex-
perience of the Spanish American
War has not been forgotten by our
people; the record of twenty thousand
cases of typhoid in the Army in six
months produced an impression which
can never be obliterated. But since
then progress in preventive medicine
has been made, and vaccination
against typhoid is a result. Antity-
phoid incubation has been subject to
rigorous tests on a large scale in
the Army during the past two years,
with the result that in 1913, out Of
ninety thousand men at home and
abroad, there was only a single case
of typhoid fever among the inoculat-
ed, record that can we'll be regard
ed as a triumph for preventive medi-
cine. 1t is believed that the army
surgeon now has weapon against
typhoid that will make the next war
unique in this regard Every officer
and man now in the United States
Army and Navy is practically safe
against this disease, and each recruit
will be inoculated at the time he is
sworn into the service The next
campaign in which the United States
Army will participate will be a prac-
teal test of typhoid prophylaXis on 4
large scale. That it will prove the
value of incubation and will relieve
warfare of one of its most horrible
'accompaniments there is little doubt
The dysenteries can be divided into
those due to bacterial invasion and
those caused by ptomains in foods.
While the water and food of the sol
diers will be more carefully guarded
than ever before, certain amount
of intestinal disorder will be inevita-
BILE. 1t can safely be predicted, how
ever, that the nation will be spared a
repetition of the 'embalmed beef"
scandals of 1908. The work of the
general staff of the Army, the devel-
opment of departmental officers of
high efficiency and the enormous
amount of publicity on pure food that
has taken place in the last decade,
ought to insure the American soldiers
a wholesome food-supply. After the
experience and warning of the past,
the American people will hold to a
strict accountability and one respon-
sible for supplying the Army with
food materials which are not in every
way up to the standard.
OF the diseases peculiar to tropical
and semicivilized countries, yellow fe-
yer, malaria, bubonic plague, cholera
and typhus must be considered. The
brilliant work of the last fifteen years
in demonstrating the transmission of
malaria and yellow fever by the mos
quito has put our Army and Navy
surgeons and sanitarians in possess
ion of all knowledge needed to con-
troll these diseases. The convincing
demonstration of the practicability of
their control given by General Cor