The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1915-09-13
NIL 1T AIRY SUR EO Ns0
BY Frederic j. Haskin

III 0y 1I6Qef1t
| Observation-Disclosures
y \ n Ri
When the Association Of Military
Surgeons Of the United States meets
in Washington today, tomorrow ana
Wednesday for its annual convention.
there will be assembled a body Of
men who, many hold. are RESPONSE
bile for the greatest good that has
been accomplished In the present gen
Grafton. " IA
For. the wise ones say, the future
VIII know the span OF years through
which the world Is now passing as the
era OF sanitation. In the last decaue
aud half, the world has learned
more OF the secrets back Of deadly
diseases and how to combat them
than 1t had in a thousand years be-
fore. Practically all the great dis
lcoveries that have meant the undo
ing OF one after another Of the dis
eases that had terrorized the world
and taken tolls by the hundreds Of
thousands, have come about through
the work Of men assembled In the
present convention.
It may therefore not be amiss TO
lenumerate q few Of these stupendous
accomplishments. The latest and
among the biggest OF them is the mas
terry OF typhoid, the disease that takes
every year the heaviest toll Of the
peoples OF the world OF any Of those
that attack their yitals and suck away
their lives.
Armies Devastated.
Typhoid has always been q disease
which armies were particularly likely
to get, and which ran through them
most devastatingly. II has been no
uncommon thing for typhoid alone to
kill more men than did the enemy.
This was true in the Spanish-Ameri-
can war. Diseases in general have al
ways been more deadly to troops than
have the attacks Of the enemy The
first war in which disease killed few
Ter men than did lighting was the Rus
so-Japanese war, which occurred af-
ter the dawn OF the era OF sanitation.
In the present war in Europe disease
is playing a lesser part than in any
conflict in all history and because
of the discoveries recently made by
military surgeons.
A 1t was In the Spanish-American
war. when recruits were dying Of ty-
phoid like poisoned ants, that the mill
itary surgeons drew the conclusion,
and proved it, that the disease was
carried BY flies. This in itself was
vastly valuable, for flies might be
kept from contaminated material and
might be screened from houses.
But the second step toward a real
mastery of the typhoid question did
not occur until ten years later. Then
the United States heard that military
surgeons abroad had developed vac
cine against typhoid. It sent an army
surgeon, Major Frederick F. Russell,
to Europe to study the work Of Eng
land and Germany and France along
this line. Major Russell found that
all these nations had vaccine, but that
none Of them seemed reliably ef1ec-
tive. Out of the methods Of all these
nations he evolved a vaccine Of his
own which was effective and which
Immediately drove typhoid from the
American army. Its use was made
compulsory over here and the results
were so strigingly desirable that the
product making immune European
troops by the million and undoubtedly
saved hundreds Of thousands Of lives
each year.
Will Become Rare.
The ultimately greatest benefit Of
ia discovery OF this sort is not, Of
course in its application to armies but