A DREADED EYE DISEASE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 August 1918, Page 8

A DREADED EYE DISEASE

RAVAGES OF TRACHOMA DANGER TO ARMIES (By Marion Nicholl lUwson, in the New lork "Evening. Post.") Vigilance against the spread of trachoma, the blinding eye-disease which is one of the most dreaded of human ailments, will have to lie redoubled wiien Americas soldiers begin to return from tlio battlefields of Europe. History tells repeatedly what u terrible scourge trachoma may become in armies. AVithin the Inst century thousands of English soldiers became Wind from it, and the records of the Continental armies are similar. It is said that in Belgium one out of every five «,!■ .ts was af-

In March, 017,- the Paris correspondent of the ' Bund" reported that an epidemic of trachoma was causing considerablo anxiety in France. Tho"introduction of tin disease was duo to the arrival of the negro African soldiers and labourers, and the isolation of all victims and the most drastic measures alone prevented the plague from spreading in tho Allied armies. As it was, the civil population did not escape so easily and tho infection was carried to Paris and the otiier largo cities, where it spread in spite of every possible precaution by the jiealth authorities. So great has always been tho prevalence .of trachoma in armies that at one time it was termed "military ophthalmia," In Amc nca, trachoma records are already high enough to make the possible return of nn infected army a real menace. A recent report from the National Committee for ■ the Prevention of Blindness shows that of those definitely reported Wind in this country one and five-tenths per cent, are so from trachoma. When one considers that the number partly bunded or suffering from the disease among the Kentuckians and Indians alone is more than 100,000, it becomes apparent that, in spite of Federal precautions at our ports, the country is going to have its hands full before it is as safe as is generally supposed.

Handed Down from Great-Grandfatlicrs. It is a mistake to imagine that Anierica line become infected with this eye trouble through recent immigration from foreign lands. Kentucky, which is the hotbed of the disease, traces it back to the great-grandfathers of the present gencyation, who lived when there was practically no communication between their isolated mountain homes and tho alien races. There have 'been cases within recent years where infection in'a factory lias been traced to tho importation of foreigners, but the trouble seems to be as old as the nation itself, and cannot with certainly be laid at the doors of oui* neighbours across the seas. Undoubtedly the continued spread of the disease has been helped by the influx from other countries, for of the thirty thousand seamen who yearly desert in United States ports, a considerable percentage examined later have been found to have trachoma. In accordance with the Federal regulations Ellis Island has deported as many as 1200 immigrants for this tromble in one year, whilo inspectors at the foreign ports, of embarkation, have prevented 2(1,600 cases from starting across the ocean, in the same length of time. .The fact .that defective eyes caused, nearly three times as many rejections as any other physical defect in the firstdraft of the American soldiers in 1917, and the statement from the United States Public Health Service, that "an applicant who is found to be suffering with a wellmarked trachoma should not be immediately rejected, but should be given treatment and his trachoma cured," are evidences that Washington is awake to the situation. Many Indians Trachomatous, Tho Indian has sinco been discovered to bo no small item in the trachoma problem of the country. Every Indian reservation, except those in New York State, has the trouble, and-approximately 20 per cent, of the entire Indian population, or between sixty-five and seventy thousand Indians in tho country, are, or were, trachomatous. Tho negro in America, on the other hand, is practically immune. As soon as the conditions among the Indians were reported to Congress, anti-trachoma work was undertaken. Six specialists were assigned to give their entire time to the subject, and in , addition more than two hundred of the regular physicians attached to the Indian Sorvico gave their attention, to it. Dr. S. Josephine- Baker, Director of tho Buiroau of Child Hygiene of Now York city,. reports that in. 1916 there were 3793 cases of trachoma among the school children of the city. In 1917, of the !)M,(i7l children in the public and parochial schools, '1387 were infected. When it was learned that only fortytwo cases wwo reported for the whole State of New York for the same jear,'exclusive of the city, it is jiatnral to wonder what causes the great difference in figures. While all trachoma is contagious, there is a form of it which is not necessarily a menace to one's neighbour, if ho haa healthy, unstrained eyes. This is tho .chronic, passive kind, and it is probable that tho figures taken in, the city include these niildcr forms, while the figures taken in the State cover only those of the extremely menacing type.