The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-10-16
MED|COS SHOULD
 BE PRAISED FOR
 THEIR WAR WORK
Surgeon Generals Report Shows Medical Depart
 ment Was on the Job.


 Washington. D. C., Oct. 16-Be- cause of the unusually high standard of health maintained in the army both at home and abroad the annual report of the surgeon-general Is awaited hear with considerable inter. est. This report will give, 1t is ex- pected, the final figures compiled by the medical department on the results of its work since organization of our World war forces. Some of the figures already compiled show that the work of the American medical corps not only far exceeded its own record in past wars, but was probably with out parallel even among the armies
 our allies and enemies in this war.
 Medical man and professional sol dfers all over the country are enthus- tastic over the advancement In medi- co military science that has been brought about since the Spanish and Civil wars
 Only one of the several epidemtcs that attacked our army left any great impression, the Spanish Influenza or Flu" with which the grim Reaper swept not only the military but to an even larger extent the civilian popu- lations of the enemy, our allies and ourselves. This was an unexpected havoc, that might have exacted an even greater toll but for the. fact that the organized medical corps was in position to check 1t and issue information and instructions for help ing the civilian public to combat ! 1t.
 When 1t was discovered that the new epidemic was abroad the medical &ha tine of all army camps where Flu was prevalent so that soldiers might not carry the disease to their friends , in the cities It then opened special hospitals and segregated the sick soldiers in the camps to avoid infect i ing their fellow soldiers and 1t opened . special hospitals in the cities, to
 which were assigned army nurses,
 doctors and soldiers to care for the
 civilian population.
 In France the men were hardened
 and more resisting. also more rigor- ous in military discipline with the result that when regulations went down it was an easy matter to scratch out the Flu so that the American army suffered less than the forces Of the enemy from the same maIady. Of the other epidemics, measles, scarlet fever, pneumonia, aZd meni- gftis were the only ones that pre- vailed to any extent and these were so well stamped out during the early organization of the army that they reappeared only to a negligible extent afterwards and were always under control.
 The dreaded typhoid typhus fever and menacing malaria were hardly eligible to be listed as prevalent dis eases there being only 297 cases of typhoid and only 23 deaths resulting from 1t during 1917, the only year for which figures are so far available. If the death rate from typhoid fever has been as great in the army during 1917 as during the Spanish American war for each million men in the service there would have been 10000 cases resulting in 14,00o
 deaths from this disease alone
 The average annual strength of the
 army for 1917, a particularly danger
 ous time when the men were being gathered into cantonme ments and camps
 from all walks of life was 678,579
 Based on the record for the Spanish
 war this should have meant that
 there would be 95,00o cases of ty- | phoid with $500 deaths.
 i The Spanish war ratio would also have meant 56,000 deaths from ty-
 phoid alone out of our entire army,
 greater than the total number of . actual battle casualties.
 At the outbread of the war our Army Medical authorities realized that acute respiratory diseases would i be the greatest factors in morbtdity
 and mortality. The surgeon-genera1, i to preserve the health Of the army, i insisted that each soldier be allowed l at least 45 feet of floor space and 500 i cubic feet of air space in his living ] quarters
 Because of tho urgent necessity of
 assembling, organizing and equipping ] as large e force as possible in 8 j given period 1t was necessary to over I crowd the camp facilities Health i conditions might have attained an even higher standard had 1t been ] possible at that time to delay, to go ! slower in forming the army, but the , loss on the battlefield would have been many times what the sick and death totals in the cantonm ents
 amounted to. Throughout the entire
 war the death and sick rate in the
 army was kept at a figure consider
 ably below that which obtained
 among civilian populations.
 : On a whole the comparison with l other American wars shows a marked ] advance in military disease proven . tion. { None of the diseases of 1861
 show a marked increase in the re-
 cent war, although pneumonia was
 much more apt to attack our forces
 in the late embrogio than in the , Civil war days. On the other hand i improved sanitation methods have i greatly decreased diseases and disease
 danger.
 1 Diarrhoea and dysentery were re-
 duced from 1000 cases in the Civil
 war to Il 900 in the late war by fight
 Ing the fly. Typhoid tnnoculatton and the and-fly and anti-mosquito :: campaign made typhoid almost as ] negligible a disease as smallpox. l Malaria was reduced from 167,00O to less than 2,0O0 due to the elin- nation of mosquito breeding areas. Mouth and throat diseases and 1n- i fecttons have been reduced one-third l on the Civil war figures by better ven
 tilation, preventing of crowding and l splitting and the isolation of car 1 rierS.
 1 Over a period from July to De- 1 cember of 1913 improved sanitation