The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1918-05-26
YOUNG GENERAL GORGAs.

The Washington Post on May is responsible
for the statement that Surgeon-Genera Gorgas
will reach the retiring age of sixty-four Oc-
tober 3, 1918. Of course this does not mean that
General Gorgas will be retired in October, be-
cause no one would consider retiring man who
every day is demonstrating his youth and eff
cheney in position of such great responsibility
as that of Surgeon-General of the United States
Army during the greatest war in history, says
the Southern Medical Journal.
Those who are in position to know, regard
General Gorgas as second in efficiency only to
President Wilson; and they marvel at the work
he has accomplished in the past year. Only a
young man in vigorous health could have lived
through what the General has done since the
War began. Office hours begin in his Office at 9
o'clock, but General Gorgas is there by or 3d.
and he is of the last to leave in the afternoon
He walks to and from his work, more than a
mile, every day, and he climbs up and down the
seven flights of stairs in the Mills Building, sew
times day, because he likes the exercise and
sometimes can not wait for an elevator.
Years ago General Gorgas demonstrated that
the white man can live, thrive and accomplish
as much in the tropics as in colder climates, if
malaria and other tropical diseases have been
eradcated. Now some are believing that he dis
covered somewhere on the Isthmus of Panama
the fountain of youth that Ponce deLeon sought
in vain in the sixteenth century. At any rate,
it is believed in Washington, too, that the two
best places of residence in the world for develop
ing youth and efficiency are Princeton and Pan
anna.
1t is just possible that there exists in Jersey
and Panama variety of mosquito that trans
mits to those whom it bites the germs of youth
and efficiency This theory, however, does not
seem tenable, because the French were bitten by
mosquitoes in Panama and died by the thous-
ands, and some are said to have been bitten by
the Jersey mosquitoes, and all the inhabitants
of New Jersey can not be considered presidential
timber.
/ President Wilson is somewhat younger in years
than General Gorgas, and since he has of
day, to keep him well, he may be expected to
continue his wonderful degree of efficiency for
many years. General Gorgas is his own doctor
and he is engaged in the small undertaking of
keeping million and half boys and young
men from catching measles, pneumonia and some
diseases that do not affect the respiratory or
gans, that afflict those who have not learned how
| to take care of themselves,-and he is doing
| both jobs better than any man before him ever
| did. If one knows of the regular life and simple
| and abstemious habits of General Gorgas he can
understand how at sixty-three years he is young
er than many men at forty. If all the soldiers
lived the hygienic life that he follows, the Army
sickness and death rate would be negligible
though it should not be forgotten that the NOR
bidity and mortality rates among our troops are
| less than half those in the Spanish-Americar
! War, and are lower than those of any other army
that was ever gotten together.