The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-07-05
Plague of Trenches
By Frederick J. Haskin.


the third day of battle. The enemy s
guns had ceased firing for some reason
which the air scouts were trying to dis
cover, and several thousand Frenchmen.
standing knee-deep in ice water that
flooded the trenches, relaxed their holds
on their rifles for the first time in 80
hours. Occasionally a khaki-clad form
stopped over what appeared to be an
empty place in the trenches and lifted
another khakl-clad form, inert and
water-soaked, onto an army ambulance.
An officer in mud-spattered uniform,
his face lined and grey as the surround
ing mist, pulled himself stiffiy out of his
trench and walked over to where an
army surgeon was working with
group of men lying unconscious in the
snow. The officer observed that the
surgeon was using not the usual hypo-
dermic of morphin, but strong reviv-
ing stimulant of hot whisky.
"Wounded?" he asked, as the surgeon
lifted one man on his arm and thrust a
canteen between his lips.
yes" answered the surgeon.
Wounded with tuberculosis.
Wounded with tuberculosis is one
of the bitterest phrases the war has
coined. 1t is bad enough to die on the
battlefield, but at least death comes
quickly under such circumstances. But
to be sent home to die slowly of the
white plague, often in a poor law in
stitution-that has been the fate of
thousands of trench soldiers. France
has discharged nearly 200, 600 soldiers
on account of tuberculosis since the be-
ginning of the war. and the spread of
the disease in the British army has
reached such alarming proportions that
the civilian population has organized to
combat the situation.
AWAKENED BY AMERICANS.
1t has taken some time for France to
realize her plight. but today the French
combative spirit is aroused. An anti
tuberculosis campaign is under way, in
which Americans are contributing the
major part both in money and service
The officer of the above incident was an
and it did not take him long
to discover that the whole French army
was rapidly being weakened by the
dread scourge. Later, when wounded,
he was sent back to France, he got in
touch with his friends from home, to
whom he gave a grim account of con
ditions. Something must be done, "
he concluded, land done quickly, or
there will be no French army.
The Americans in Paris Immediately
organized themselves into acQmmittee-
that being one Of the things for which
Americans are famous and called upon
the French government. The French
was sufficiently alarmed
the spread Of the disea-e.
but unfortunately it was already handi-
capped with too many obligations to
offer any adequate remedy for the
situation. 1t simply had to be left to
the civil population.
In subsequent investigation it be
came apparent that the civil population
was largely responsible for the disease
anyway, and not the army While
trench life certainly aggravates any
tendency towards tuberculosis, it was
discovered that in the majority of cases
the disease was already there, that the
whole Of France was highly tuberculosis.
Before the war the death rate from
was nearly three per 1000
of population. in the cities the percent
age running much higher In Havre,
for example, the death rate from all
last year was over three times
that of New York City. The death
rate from tuberculosis alone was equal
to 40 per cent. Of the entire death rate
of New York City.
FRESH AIR is NEEDED.