Arizona republican., 1917-12-27
GENERAL BLUE LET'S
 OUT METHOD USED T0KEEP MEN HEALTHY

TOKEEP MEN HEALTHY
 WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. 26.- Dr. Rupert Blue, surgeon general Of the United States army, in a com munication to the National Geo. graphic society, reveals some of the methods employed by the government 10 protect the health of the new na- tional army while it was being as- sembled at the various cantonmentS and during its period of intensive train ing. The following excerpt from the communication is issued by the Ma tional Geographic society as a war geography bulletin:
 Tn order to attack an enemy, it is l necessary to know where that enemy | is. One of the functions of the public health service is to collect data relat- l ing to the prevalence of communicable disease, in order that sanitarians throughout the United States may know what diseases to guard against. | These reports are received daily from all parts of the United States, and, in addition, American consuls throughout the world keep the public health ser vice informed as to the sanitary con- ditions prevailing at the points at which they are stationed. This latter information is used in the operation of the maritime quarantines. Once week this material is published in the public health reports, and thus made available for immediate use.
 "As soon as war was declared an arrangement was made with the sur geon general of the army and the sur geon general of the navy whereby they were forwarded daily a complete re- sume of the reports received by the | public health service. It soon became evident, however, that in the admins tration of the extra cantonment zones | it was necessary to establish series l of model sickness registration areas, so that prompt and effective steps might be taken to stamp out disease among the civilian population before l it had had opportunity to spread to troops or to gain a foothold in the extra cantonment community.
 Each officer in charge was, there fore, instructed to make all necessary arrangements with the physicians within his zone, to report immediately all cases of certain communicable dis eases occurring in their practice. Card forms and franked envelopes were sup | nation. A similar arrangement was made with the undertakers to check up those cases which died without medi- cal attendance or in which a report had not been made. A reciprocal daily in- terchange of information regarding the occurrence of communicable diseases lD the cantonment and in the extra cantonment zone was arranged with tho sanitary officer in charge of the camp The information received of disease occurrence among troops is regarded as confidential and is used only as { means of checking up diseases in tn, surrounding area.
 All of the data collected in this wa! Is summarized in morning report ant forwarded to the public health servic bureau in Washington. Here 1t i carefully spotted on maps and col iected into one daily report, copies O . which are forwarded to the medical de partments of the army and the navy The value of this service cannot b.
 overstated. It was reported, for ex amble, that an epidemic of typhoit fever had broken out at a city iron e which 100 drafted men were about t :, depart to a cantonment in a neighbor . ing state. There were about 15 ney cases each day, and two cases oc cured among the drafted men,
 Immediately the laboratory ca . -Wyman' with its full complement 0 ! offlcers and men, was dispatched { 7 that point. All water, supplies, ic
 cream and milk were carefully inves
 tgated. The source of the epidemi
 from leaky storage reservoir wa
 discovered, a chlorination plant wa
 installed while repairs were being mad :, and the outbreak promptly snuffed ou . In the meantime, the surgeon genera
 Of the army ordered the drafted me Ie held until their vaccination agains 's typhoid should have been complete, .s During this period it was possible [ 'V discover other infected individual
 Thus, not only were measures take l. for the prevention of the introductio ,s of typhoid fever into a cantonmet. bu j. what is perhaps even more importan 7 infected individuals were prevente
 from travelling interstate and spread ts ing the disease among civilian con 'o munities
 Tn July, a typhoid fever epidem
 broke out in the immediate vicinity
 an army post at which some 12,0
 soldiers were stationed. A survey q,
 veloped the fact that the sewage di,
 posal system in the civil communii
 was very primitive and the water SUI
 ply extremely insanitary. There W; no local health code; the milk supp
 was uncontrolled and the scavengiI | system extremely bad.
 Operations were immediately b gun. The bad conditions obtaining
 the pumping station, settling basin Il and reservoirs were corrected; pla were put in force for the extension the sewer and water mains; the fo
 depots were put in sanitary cond tion; the dairies were inspected; CT demiological investigations were ma - of the cases of typhoid fever; ov - 4,000 people were vaccinated again
 the disease in the first week of oper
 tions; the medical inspection of schs
 children was instituted, and the enti
 community placed upon sanita
 basis which it never knew before a
 which it will probably never forget.
 At another place, which is visit
 weekly by several thousand office
 and enlisted men of the army, the
 was an explosive outbreak of typh,
 fever. The death rate was high T
 bulk of the cases were traced to
 single ice cream factory. Several (
 cured among persons who had be
 vaccinated against typhoid fever.
 This simply meant that while tho
 individuals were protected against 1