The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-09
Dozens of he Bodies of Servian Soldiers Lying Uns buried in a Ruined Village and Forming Each
 Incubator for Pestilence.

an anti-typhus serum that bids fair to put typhus in the same class that vaccination has smallpox
 And now about General Gorgas, who will be probably the only general in Flu rope applying the military idea, the idea of organization and system, not to slaugh- ter but to the conservation of human i11e.
 To go no further back than to the first year of this twentieth century By order of General Wood, himself physician, sur geon-Maior Gorgas proceeded to eiimlnate pestilenee and more especially yellow fever. from Havana; and Gorgas cleaned up that job within year-though tne memory of man ran not back to the tlme when Yellow Jack had not been constant visitor to that all-unwilling city.
 Gorgas's next assignment was the Pana ma Canal
 Gorgas and his associates made that erst while most pestilent region on the globe as infection-free as any in these uhltea States and much healthier than many Panama now rivals Palm Beach as health resort.
 And here reader, is some food TOT thought for you to digest, just now, when every morning you are scanning the wal news in your paper. In modern warfare Il has been costing about $15.000 to kill man. in the Boer row this item came as high as $40000; the Balkan mix-up witn Turkey was conducted more reasonably Si0,000 bv ned up in making one man 1000 for powder; and who can doubt that the cost of "kanonen futter" in the present world-war does not far exceed any of these estimates? So many thousands of dollars inst for killing man! Gorgas in the CarPl Zone saved human lie at the actual cost of S2.43 the indviduaI Sanitation in the Isthmus under his command cost just i've per cent of the total canal building ex' penditures.
 Next the Chamber of Commerce Mines of Johannesburg asked Gorgas, now Gen eral Gorgas. to visit South Africa and 10 study the sanitary, or rather the ilsani- tary, conditions in the Witwatersrand mines He went with the consent and approval of our War Department. And the result has been length of days for many a poor Kaffir who would otherwise have died must untimely and most pathetically of pneumonia, tuberculosis and grippe. the infections most prevailing in those regions.
 Another problem put up to Gorgas was offered by the town of Guayaqul in Ecua' dora town that existed in the twentieth century under fourteenth century condi. tions; town which had frs. mortgage on most of the malarias in existence; town in which yellow fever might almost have been called an industry. We'll, in brief, Gorgas heading a commission of
 
 cially of Dr. Lloyd, of the United States Hospital Marine Service, solved the prob lem, which was to take the kill" out of Guayaquil.
 So the unique value of Gorgas's work and the fact which peculiarly interests us here lies in his practical demonstrations that 1t is possible to make any section of the earth pestilence-free; that civilized man has today no business receding to 1t<,n al nf fata alt nation or indifference to the ravages of epidemic diseases.
 Some years ago Johns Hopkins Univer. sity made Gorgas a Doctor of Laws. On that memorable occasion he said: q first came to Baltimore forty-fve years ago, a ragged barefoot little rebel with empty pockets and still more empty stomach. My father had gone South with Lees army At the fall and destruction of Richmond my mothers house, with all she had was burned. leaving her stranded, with six small children. These memories are vivid and can never be effaced." How vividly will they come to mind. arousing pity and sympathetic emotions, when this great man goes to Servia in the Spring of this year of our Lord 1915 and comes upon their like?
 That's the kind of man Gorgas is. And when we seek to comprehend the reasons for his success, we naturally recall the house in Holland where Peter the Great studied shipbuildng. In this house is Peters picture, and under it the legend in Dutch: "Den grooten man is niets te klein"-STo the great man there is noth ing too small' for consideration.
 Disease germs are mighty small things few exceeding oneten-thousandth of a. inch in size. But the bacterial bullet to-day killing off more human beings .-- far than any weapon. Gorgas grasps that little detail, wherefore the world may hope that his army of sanitation. should he take command, will win the most noble and be- nignant of human victories. those over the plaques, scourges, visitations and pestt fences!