WAR AND DISEASE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 95, 15 January 1918, Page 5

WAR AND DISEASE

BRITAIN'S WONDERFUL MEDICAL SEil

TREATMENT OF WOUNDS

Dr. Woods Hutchinson, who recently camo to Europe with introductions from President Wilson, was filled with enthusiasm of what he saw of the work of tho medical services. "What impressed mo most," ho Eaid to an interviewer, ''was the fact tbat, whatever the other services may have done, tho medical services have 'made good' and practically wiped out dißeaee in war. The whole danger of war today is in what may bo termed its legitimate risks: wounds and battle casualties. In an earlier day it was just the reverse. From six to nine times as many soldiers used to die from disease as upon the actual field of battle :.nd from wounds. In this war the proportion approximately is twenty deaths from wounds to one from disease. "At tho same time one of tho things that strikes the visitor to the front is that the field of battle is not nearly so dangerous percentilely as it was. The big guns are awfully stupid. They are all" right at smashing up the landscape, but when it comes to hitting a particular object at which they aro aiming—oh! Heavens! I have seen important bridges and roads barely three miles behind the rear trench, and net more than four or four and a half from the German guns, left untouched. In one caso there' was a combination railway bridge and canal bridge, both of vital importance to traffic. The whole surrounding country was literally torn and pitted with shells of every description, but this bridge was never bit in the whole eleven months' bombardment. Four Tons to Kill a Man. "It used to bo thought extravagant to say that for every man killed in the old stylo of warfare his weight in lead was shot away, but to kill a man in this war it takes about four tons ot projectiles and explosives. It costs more in money and effort to take human life than it ever did before, for the same ingenuity that invented engines of destruction has also invented means ot defence and protection. Probably the. total death-rate from battle casualties does not exceed i or 5 per cent. As to the death rate from disease—l am speaking of the Western front—it is a perfectly contemptible figure—about ! one-tenth of 1 per cent. Hospital ar- ' rangeinents have undergone a great change from former times. It was the ! old notion that hospitals Bhould be placed in a good safe place well in the rear. Now they are just as near the guns as we dare got them. I have been in French and British hospitals containing between three and four thousand beds within twelve miles of tho German guns. "The treatment of wounds depends for its success upon a and radical operation in almost ever., case within eight hours of the time a man 'is Kit, and if possible within four hours. You cannot wait to send a man back forty, fifty, or perhaps a hun'dred miles to the rear, because every wound is a badly-infected wound, and you have to remove not only tho lacerated fragments of tissue, but to lift out almost in one piece all the flesh surrounding it. When every bit is removed in this way the wound will heal in about two weeks."

Explaining why every wound is badly infected, Dr. Hutchinson said that after the projectile strikes its shell fragments ato thrown up laden with every kind of germ. 'Within the battle area is the most richly fertilised soil in the whole- world, and wo get in the wounds' all the contents or this fertilisation, including, unfortunately, the tetanus bacillus and the gus gangrone bacillus. "The entire medical organisation of the Western armies is extraordinarily good," he continued , , "and although both an Amwican and an Englishman born—and hence I may not Uβ quite an impartial judge—l think that tho medical services of the English Army are most magnificent. All American physicians and surgeons who have seen them say, 'If we can get anything like them in firo years wo shall do extremely well. . They are one of the most perfect things I havo ever seen.

The American Hospitals.

"At present the American organisation is merely in preparation. They were told that a few casualties might bo expected after the middle of October, but the organisation so far consists almost entirely of hospitals at tho baso, from thirty to fifty miles from the firing-line. Those hospitals are very well equipped. One is in charge of a nnit from the Johns Hopkins School at Baltimore, which has a total equipment of two hundred and fifty doctors) nurses, and orderlies. The orderlies are for the most part medical students enlisted specially for this work. They have brought over the third and fourth year cjasses in anticipation of giving them instruction and graduating them on tho field of battle."

Of the Italians Dr. Hutchinson spoko with great enthusiasm. "They ha,vo really done wonderful work," he said. "Starting out with searcoly the equipment enough for fifty thousand men, they have built factories for making their own guns, munitions, clothing— in fact, everything. They have done it all magnificently, and they have also a fine medical organisation. The men are well fed and well cared for, and a nm satisfied that as soon as they got back to a safe line where they can entrench themselves without having thoir flanks continually threatened, they will again give a good account of themselves. "They havo fought splendidly ■on mountain heights which might well be considered inaccessible. They have gone right up through 'chimneys'— splits in the mountains—which theAustrians believed no one could climb and left them entirely unguarded, and 1 feel sure they will do as splendidly again."

Adding a word about the general health of tho country, Dr. Hutchinson said that, whereas in Germany during the past year and a half the death rate has been far in excess of the birth rate, in England, partly owing to the extremely good health of the armies in the field and partly to the remarkable prosperity of the masses of tho working people and the special care that is being taken by public health officers and othois, the population is increasing. "The diminution in infant mortality and tho death rates at all ages, except tho old, is quito noticeable," he said, "and last year the death rate in England was tho lowest ever known."