The Washington herald., 1918-02-11
By JOHN L. BALDERsToN.

tCop1nGht, lsb, by the Mcclure NewSpaper
syndicstsJ
France. Jan. IL (by maIl).-This
Is a healthy war. Americans who
are old enough remember the
horrors of the sixties. when i've
men were stricken by disease 70
every man who fell in battle. and
the terrors of yellow fever and ty-
phoid in the Spanish war are not
forgotten. In this war most ter
rible of all. disease has been almost
stamped out. There is no reason
to suppose that the American med
ical service will prove less efficient
in the field than the British. and 90
to prove my point that this Il a
healthy war. have obtained figures
from the British war office that
would have been regarded as Utop-
ian by any medical authority -four
years ago.
The germ. as deadly a foe as the
German, has been conquered on the
Western front. The amount of work
necessary to carry through success
fully this great offensive against
unseen enemies is incredible to q
layman. One fact will show the in
finite detail of the complex task OF
keeping the army fit
Fish and Water.
The British Royal Medical Corps
is in business as a fsh-monger. II
does not provide fish for food-al.
though its experts do prescribe. &C.
cording to the calories and proteins
and carbohydrates and the rest
the amount OF the army's fish ia.
tion. The r. A n. c. breeds fish
in England and sends them to tht
front. in tanks, 20 make sure that
the army gets pure water and does
not catch malaria
What have fish to do with drink
ing water? There is q small fish
whose favorite diet is mosquito
eggs. In the sta gnant water that
fills the shell-hyles and spreads
about the country when canals are
blocked and streams turned from
their courses, the mosquito family
finds its spiritual home. A plague
of mosquitoes at the front would
mean malaria. So the r. A NJ. c
decided to get rid of the mosQui-
toes.
Billions Of little fish were bred from
English streams and ponds and sent
to France and Belgium in tanks. A
few were put in all the larger ex-
, panses OF stagnant water, and be
fore they died they cleaned up the
mosquitoes. Other little fish. more for
tunate, placed in running watei
where the army draws it drinking
supply, have increased and multiplied
purified the streams and ponds. anc
assisted the R. A NJ. c. in its cam
paign against malaria and typhoid.
II in the British army typhoid fe'
yer had proved as prevalent in this
4 struggle as in the Boer war. which
itself was a great improvement ovel
the Spanish-American war. the dis
ease would have stricken a quarter
1 Of a million men q year. That figur,
is official. In four yeart OF fighting
| typhoid would have "done in a mil
| lion men, and 1t is not likely that th'
| British army, less a million men coulC
stand of the Germans. The r. A. NJ
c., therefore, in conQuering typhoit
alone. have prevented a wastage tha
would have lost the war.
Typhoid InecuIatiOn-
| Ninety-eight per cent OF the British
soldiers in France are inoculateC
against typhoid. In the whole army
two in every thousand catch typhoid
every year. and OF the total strength
of the army, one man in 5000 dies
Only one inoculated man IN ever
4 2.00O catches the disease, while o.
those who are not fnoculated-a ven
small number 10 in l,OJ0 fall vic
tins. In the South African wsr. u
men out OF each l.OOl had typhoit
every year. and Is of them died. tn,
calculation, as officially applied to tn,