New-York tribune., 1918-07-28

- ss ssiass,s "' s5!%- sss-
=aS7y y1d= ror. The
Dr.. Simon Flexner trenches of
the Western front would be an un-
| Imaginable mass of diseased and
suppurating flesh. In spite of the
| difficulties arising on scale never
before dreamed of, medical science
and preventive sanitation have
been able to control most of the
familiar types of war disease
and have reduced them to
point far lower than that of previous
wars. New diseases have made their
presence felt and rare infections
have become common. But medical
science has met most Of these prob
lens with adequate remedies, limited
in their action only by the physical
proportions and difficulties of apply
ing them. A substantial list of new
discoveries. methods, serums and
antitoxins is the fruit of the scientific
study of the wars medical problems,
and some of these discoveries will
retain value to mankind in sue
ceeding years of peace.
Tireless Worker
Y In New Problems
! DR.. Fexner, who is ROW Lieuten-
ant-Colonel S. Flexner, NJ. c. N. A.,
is perhaps the worlds foremost bac-
THEOLOGICAL expert. His work in
connection with New York's in
fantile paralysis epidemic, which
he helped to curb, is still re-
membered, and his antotoxin for
eerebro, spinal meningitis is possibly
the most definitely successful discov-
cry of its kind in the past ten years.
The Rockefeller Institute, under Dr.
Flexner's direction, has likewise
made material headway in the scien-
4 3
war broke out in Europe DR.. Flexner
has been tireless in his work to meet
the new problems. DR.. Flexner has
been decorated with the Cross of the
Legion of Honor.
| DR.. Flexner is member of the
National Academy of Sciences, the
Association of American Physicians,
the American Philosophical Society
and the American Association of Pa
{, biologists and Bacteriologists and
other scientific societies at home and
abroad.
The present war, DR.. Flexner as
serted, stands in sharp contrast to
all previous conflicts on large scale
BY the relatively small proportion of
death and disability caused by dis
ease and infection.
War and pestilence," he said,
have in the PAST been almost con-
vertlble or synonymous terms. If we
wish to consider the relation of dis
ease to wounds in the present war
we should choose for comparison a
war or wars waged on large scale
before the ushering in of the present
era of preventive medicine, which is
! based largely on archaeological in
vestigation made in the last thirty
years. Perhaps our Civil War would
furnish fair basis Of comparison,
since medical diseases as compared
With wounds received in action far
outweighed the latter as causes of
disability and death. If to the medi-
cai diseases are added the infections
u wounds occurring in hospital, the
overweight is prodigious.
The medical catastrophes of the
V'Vll War are practically outside the
memory of the present generation Of
surgeons and laymen. Happily, there
@stlll among US a great surgeon who
as young man saw much active SER
wee IN the field and hospital. Dr.
". ". Keen, of Philadelphia, in his
wrongs has glven vivid pictures of
'ss destruction worked by the germs
" typhoid and other fevers and those
VI wound infection, including the
s~itt and deadly hospital gangrene.
nut the medical catastrophes of the
spanish American War are within
,ne memory of many of us. The
eaVoc which typhoid fever made
among our unseasoned troops in that
short contest is matter of common
knowledge, to be contrasted with the
present virtual abolition of that
p'asue as military disease. Where
.o'merly the camp and typhoid fever
we're inseparable companions, to-day,
"hiie that disease still prevails in