WAR AND DISEASE.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 February 1918, Page 4

WAR AND DISEASE.

BRITAIN’S WONDERFUL MEDICAL SERVICE.

TKKA'BMENT OF WOBNDS.-

Dr Woods Hutchinson, who recent- a ]y came to Europe with introductions k from President Wilson, was filled c with enthusiasm of what he saw of c the work of the medical services. 1 “What impressed me most,” he said to an interviewer, “ was the fact i that, whatever the other services may } have done, thte medical services have < ‘made good’ and practically wiped ; out disease in war. The whole danger 1 of war to-day is in what may be 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 and from wounds. In this war the proportion approximately is twenty .deaths from wounds to one from disease. “At the same time one of the 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 are aiming—o.h ! Heavens ! I have seen important bridges and roads bare]v three miles behifid the rear trench, and not more than four or four and a half from the German guns, left wrtouched. In one case 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 hit in the whole eleven months’ bombardment. four tons to Kir.r. a man. “It used to be thought extravagant to say that for every man killed in the old style of warfare his weight in lead was shot away, hut to kill a ; man in this war it takes about tour tons of projectiles and explosives. It i costs more in money and effort to take human life than ib ever did before, for the same ingeilnity that invented engines of destruction has also invented means of defence and protection. Probably the total deathrate from battle casualties does not exceed 4or 5 per cent. A s to the death-rata from disease —I am speaking of the Western front —it is a perfectly contemptible figni’e—about one-tenth of 1 per cent. Hospital arrangements have undergone a great change from former times. It was the old notion that hospitals should be placed in a good safe place well in the rear. Now they are just as near the guns as we dare get them. I have been in French and British hospitals containing between three and iour thousand beds within t welve miles of the German guns. “ Tke treatment of wounds depends - for its success upon a thorough and radical operation iD almost every case within eight hours of the time a man is hit, and if possible within four hours. You cannot wait to send a j man back forty, fifty, or perhaps a hundred miles to the rear, because t every wound is a badly infected wound, and you have to remove not I only the lacerated fragments of tissue, but to lift out. almost in one piece all the flesh 1 surrounding it. When fivei’y 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 are thrown up laden with every kind of germ. Withiu the battle area is the most richly

fertilised soil in the whole world, and we get in the wounds all the contents of this fertilisation, including, unfortunately, the tetanus bacillus and the gaß gangrene bacillus.

“ The entire medical organisation of the Western armies is extraordinarily good,” he continued, “and although both an American ancl an Englishman born—and hence I may not be quite an impartial .judge—l think that the 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 five years we shall do extremely well.’ They are one of the most perfect things I have ever seen.

THE AMERICAN HOSPITALS. “ At present the American organisation is merely in preparation. They were told that a few' casualties might be expected after the middle of October, but the organisation so far consists almost entirely of hospitals at the base, from thirty to titty miles from the firing fine. These hospitals are well equipped. One is in charge of a unit "fro hi the J.ohns 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 classes in anticipation of giving them instruction and graduating them on the field of battle.”

Of the Italians Dr Hutchinson spoke with great enthusiasm. “ They have really done wonderful work,” he said. “ Starting out with scarcely' 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 t-key have also a fine medical organisation. The men are well fed and well cared for, and I am satisfied that as soon as soon as they get back to a, safe line where they can entrench themselves without having their flanks continually threatened, they will again give a good account of themselves. “They have fought splendidly on mountai* heights which might well be 'considered inaccessible. They have gone right up through ‘ chimneys ’ —splits in the mountains—which the Austrians believed no one could climb and left them entirely unguarded, and I feel sure they will do as splendidly again.”

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Adding a word about the general health of the country, Dr Hutahinson said that, whereas in Germany during tke past year and a half the deathrate 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 the working people and the special care that is being taken by public health officers and others, the population ie increasing. “ The diminution in infant mortality and the death rates at all ages, except] the old, is quite noticeable,” he said, “ and ' last year the death rate in England was the lowest ever known.”