THE OTHER DAY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 74, 6 July 1942, Page 6

THE OTHER DAY

(N.Z.E.F. Official News Service) (By Air Mai!) C.Yi IK), IMny .'•!. Every morning in Hie New Zealander's base camp at Maadi a group oi' men set out at dawn ami work till dusk making war on disease and dirt. These are the men oi' the Hygiene. Section who have given New Zealand camps a reputation for cleanliness, good sanitation and healthy living conditions. The men are specially trained, and in a quiet and unostentatious manner, they are doing a grand job. Old soldiers who were in Egypt during the last war will remember the hordes of persistent which would appear anywhere even in the middle of the desert, miles away from all habitation. Flies in Egypt still possess these annoyingly persistent habits: they are still harbingers of disease; but in New Zealand camps they are kept under control. It lias been a long and ceaseless campaign. Breeding places inside and outside the camp area had to be eliminated and the soldiers themselves had to acquire new antifly habits. To-day rubbish is burned in large incinerators and the little, that cannot be destroyed is deeplj r burieil and oil sealed. Native villages arc regularly inspected and rubbish burned under supervision. Constant propaganda in the form of lectures, posters and newspaper articles have sought to teach the troops new habits. To-day in Maadi Camp, there are hardly more ilies than in the average New Zealand city suburb in summertime. As summer draws near the hygiene section turns its attention to the anti-malarial campaign, against the mosquito. The main danger areas are ouside the camp, but it has to be borne in mind that a mosquito can ily non-stop for . several miles even against the wind. It is thus necessary to go into the villages and irrigated fields to drain stagnant pools and disinfect canals with Paris Green, A large number of native workers enter the base camp daily. There is always the possibility that they may bring infection. So with the co-operation of the Egyptian Health Department, they arc regularly inspected and disinfected when necessary. The camp is supplied with water from the Nile. It is treated in the Maadi waterworks and pumped throughout the camp area. The troops have a story that if a white man falls into the Nile he should have 57 injections to guard against infection. However true this may be, drinking water has to be closely watched, and in spite of the careful treatment the water receives at the pumping station the hygiene section takes daily tests. The water in the camp swimming pool is also specially treated to prevent infection. ) A watchful eye is kept on the camp laundry, where native women sit hour after hour washing clothes in large pans of hct, soapy water. Another branch o!' operations is at the NAAFJ establishment which serves food to tin troops in the evening. T'h--.. have had to conform to New Zealand si:uid:mS< of hygiene -»sic! their -kiieh-. are carefully »■:'! Hk' : i.■ill.' mad. on enterlUv eair.j.\ is a series of .shallow about 2fH't square. These are evaporation pans. When drainage facilities for the camp were first planned it was discovered that water would not drain into the sand. It is a characteristic of the desert that rain water just lies on the surface in pools till it evaporates. Hence it was accessary to adopt the evaporation system of disposal of drainage water, whereby it flows through pipes to the pans and there evaporates. The rains do riot carry non-soluble materials, which are held by grease traps" at the nv* takes. These trap-: are.cleaned out at regular intervals and the grease

Ia the last war disease, look a heavy toll of out' manpower, but the percentage of wastage due to diesase in this Avar has been small. This economy lias been achieved, greatly through the work of hygiene sections similar to the one in Maadi. They have applied to military camps the basic principles of public health and sanitation which are adopted in our own Ncav Zealand cities.