TROOPS AND PESTILENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 152, 6 October 1910, Page 4

TROOPS AND PESTILENCE.

Lord Kitchener has lately said, according to the cables, that improved sanitation and inoculation had banished fever from barracks as completely as cholera has been banished; that during the past ten years the deaths from epidemic diseases in t'he Army have been reduced fifty per cent.; and that there were difficulties in fighting pestilence in India owing to the age-oldi traditions of the natives. In great campaigns pestilence carries more men to the cemetery than bullets, shells or sabres. Enteric fever is the most deadly enemy of troops in modern times, and only the simplest knowledge is necessary to eliminate all risk from this enemy, it is N noted that Lord Kitchener spoke only of the elimination of enteric fever in barracks, where,, of course, every man, both wise and ignorant, is under complete and never-ending supervision, and where sanitary precautions are taken as a matter of mere routine. Although it seems impossible to carry the minute detail of watchfulness from the barracks into the camp and field, we are led to believe that' by so doing the Japanese troops in their great conflict with the Russians did so, and that they carried out huge operations with fewer casualties from disease than, any army that has ever fought. There could be no epidemic of enteric fever without contamination of drinking liquids. That is to say, if every drop of water drunk toy the troops in South Africa had been boiled, ten thousand young men would have survived. Disease was carried about in water'bottles, in water-carts, and until the authorities "got wise" there was no restraint. .The pathetic feature of this preventable disease is that it .attacks the youngest and apparently the' most robust, especially during a campaign where the work is largely done by small detached parties, aAvay from medical supervision. The area of infectivity in the case of South Africa was so enlarged that it was practically impossible to obtain drinking water that was free from the dreaded germ. The absence of means of killing these germs meant that it was allowed to rage, and so the inadequate field hospitals were quite unable to deal with the eases. If enteric fever break out in the barracks in time of peace, it is possible to locate the source of infection at once and to stamp it out. It is unusual, to have a largu percentage of deaths from typhoid in peace time probably because of the ease of findin* the source of the trouble. Probably "with the experience gained in late campaigns Britain may keep her soldiers alive longer during the next venture. Kitchener's view is a purely military one, and a commander must look at the fehtins strength of his command. A sick man is a nuisance; a dead man a worse one for he not only reduces the fighting strength I of an army by being taken oli' the roll but makes it necessary to detail ablebodied men to look after him or burr him When it is clearly proved that a ileal thy subject: may be'the host of tile microbe of enteric fever, and that what is dormant in him may become active if passed 011, seems that typhoid is worth fighting. We have had local military examples of the ease with which this water-borne disease may find a host, and it is only necessary to mention that under some conditions such a source might have affected ten thousand menor as many more as were in a lit eondition to propagate the germs,