The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1918-09-28
Saturday, September 20. 1918
THE TOLL OF DISEASE

Disease is always an attendant OF
war. The reports of pneumonia and
other diseases brighten the people at
home but never before has there been
so little loss from disease as during
the present struggle. Science in sani-
tation and medicine have done mar.
wells in protecting the men in the
army.
In ancient times practically every
great war was attended by plague
which spread, not only over the war
area but often over the whole civil
lied world. The deaths from disease
were frequently a hundred times the
number slain in battle. Even no
longer ago than during the Civil war
the losses from disease were greater
than from the shock of arms There
are thousands of people now living
who remember the fatal epidemics Of
measles, pneumonia and typhoid that
declmated Camp Griffin and other
army camps during the Civil war
1t was the Japanese during their
war with Russia who first showed the
nations OF the world that care and
sanitation would prevent the horrors
of diesase that, up TO that time made
war so terrible. In that war the
Japanese lost from disease only one
forty seventh part as many men as
did their Russian opponents, in pro.
portion to the number engaged.
1t is fairly certain that the Spanish
Iafuenza, II different from the IA
milar grippe, originated in the Ger
man camps In this connection it may
be noted that through all the wars of
history diseases generated by !nsani
tary herding OF men in the camps. Of
beligerents have always produced cpl
denies which before that time had
been little or not at all known to
many OF the populations affected. Go
ing far back, we find that Athens was
visited during the Peloponnesian war.
t30-425 b. c. by severe disease
known as the Attic sickness which
cost many valuable lives, including
that OF PericIes. Some historians
even ascribe to this epidemic the fall
Of the Athenian hegemony,
During the Punic wars, the Car
thagenian Army was said to have been
reduced by smallpox, and Hamiear
was forced thereby to raise the siege
OF Syracuse. In the year l65. the Ro-
man legions befor Seleucia were thin.
ned by n similar scourge, the disease
following the banners Of the conquer
or and conquered and spreading TO
Rome itself. where Il worked havoc
.uder the name OF "Antonins Plague"
AHt blaNh btaAh NilNh oNtpN pNti
Europe in the fourteenth century at.
tackled the army OF the Black Prince
and forced him to abandon the siege
OF Calais. syphilis at the end of the
fifteenth century spread through the
army OF Charles VIII. invader OF
Naples, dccimating Il after the battle
of Fornuovo
Since the seventeenth century the
typhus scourge attached itself to the
wake OF armies. working it's most
notable piece OF destruction with the
Napoleonio hosts. In more recent
times typhus has APPEARED in terrible
guise IN the Crimean war Accord.
ing 10 reliable information typhus cost
England 10000 men. France $4,000,
and Russia 100000 Typhoid fever
has repeatedly become a pandemlc OF
wartime. particularly in America and
during the prussian war
In modern times dysentcry has been
a common anliciion of warning armies
and still remains source Of serious
concern for medical STATS
II is natural for the country to be
disturbed by the reports OF sickness
in the camps but, II our medical mon
and sanitary engineers are as capable
as the Japanese proved in 1904, they
win cmguor tho sickness viii, loss
no greater than there would be among
n similar number Of young men at
home. rH. f.n ,. io 500