El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1918-02-16

-ARIS, France, Feb. 16-This is q
- healthy war. Americans who
are old enough remember the
horrors Of the sixties, when five men
were stricken by disease to every
man who fell in battle, and the ter
rors Of yellow fever and typhoid in
the Sapnish war are not forgotten.
In this war, most terrible of all, dis
ease has been almost stamped out.
There is no reason to suppose that
the American medical service will
prove less efficient in the field than
the British, and so to prove my point
that this is q healthy war, have
obtained figures from the British
war office that would have been re-
garded as Utopian by any medical
authority four years ago.
The germ, as deadly a foe as the
German, has been conquered on the
western front. The British royal
medical corps is in business as
fishmonger. It does not provide fish
for food-although its experts do
prescribe, according to the calories
and proteins and carbohydrates and
the rest, the amount Of the army,s
fish ration The R. A NJ c. breeds
fish in England and sends them to
the front, in tanks. to make sure that
the army gets pure water and does
not catch malaria
Fish Feat Mosquito EGGS.
What have fish to do with drink
ing water? There is q small fish
whose favorite diet is mosquito eggs.
IN the stagnant water that fills the
shell holes 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 n. c. decided to get rid of the
mosquitoes.
Billions Of little fish were bred
from British 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 before
they died they cleaned up the mosqui-
toes Other little fish, more fortu-
nate. placed IN running water where
the army draws its drin king supply,
have increased and multiplied, puri-
fled the streams and ponds, and as
sisted the r A. N. c. in its campaign
against malaria and typhoid.
Science Saves Million Men.
If in the British army typhoid had
proved as prevalent in this struggle
as in the Boer war, which itself was
a great Improvement over the Span
war, the disease would
have stricken 4 quarter OF a million
men a year. That figure IS official
In four years Of fighting. typhoid
would have done IN" a million men,
and it is not likely that the British
army. less a million men. could stand
off the Germans. The r A n c.
therefore. in conquering typhoid
alone. have prevented a Wastage that
would have lost the war.
Ninety-eight per cent Of the British
soldiers fighting in France are in
oculated 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 10000 dies. Only one inoculated
man in every two thousand catches
the disease. while of those who are
not tnOculated-a very small number
ten in a thousand fall victims. In
the South African war, 107 men out
Of each 1000 had typhoid every year,
and Is OF them died The calculation
Of the armies in France, which can
not give, works out roughly that a
quarter of a million men are saved
yearly by the new methods
In spite Of the terrific artillery en-
gagged. in spite. too. of the Germans
having introduced into the field such
fiendish devices as robson gas. the
death rate in the British forces is far
less than in any previous great wars.
That Is because the British medical
have carried preventive
and preservative measures to the