558 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



themselves their sleeping places, food and clothing, but are at many 

 points under subjection. Not only are they densely massed together, 

 but they are not adapted to the new environment, even after they be- 

 come veterans, who may be classed as respects immunity with the com- 

 mercial traveler and the 'globe-trotter.' 



War and pestilence are twin brothers, but they do not always work 

 side by side. Often pestilence follows war ; more rarely they reap their 

 dreadful harvest on the same day. The word 'pestilence' should be 

 understood to include not merely the grave plagues that have decimated 

 the human race, but the less severe epidemics of disease which have 

 spread over large areas of space and affected to a less extent great 

 numbers of the human family. Even thus, however, in comparison, 

 the deadliness of war is far surpassed by its grim camp-follower. 

 Where the one slays its thousands, the other destroys its ten thousands. 



In this country, the epidemic visitations following war have been 

 both mitigated and severe. We fought Great Britain in the Eevolution, 

 and soon after were afflicted with maladies some of which had not 

 before tormented our people. Soon after 1780 the daily papers of Bos- 

 ton, New York and Philadelphia were filled with advertisements of 

 remedies for the itch, a malady which had never before so multiplied on 

 our soil, water being abundant, soap cheap and the habits of our fore- 

 fathers cleanly. The War of 1812 was chiefly naval and its aftermath 

 of disease insignificant, for the reason that of all afloat the American 

 war vessel has ever been the most scrupulously clean. But the Mexican 

 War was followed by an epidemic of cholera of severe grade; and the 

 late Civil War was the precursor of a succession of typho-malarial fevers 

 that were previously almost unknown save in certain special locali- 

 ties and to physicians there resident. In a similar way the plague fol- 

 lowed the Saracen armies under Mahomet in 622; syphilis spread 

 through Europe after the campaign of the dissolute Frenchmen who 

 followed to Italy the standard of Charles VIII. ; and the English paid 

 a price for the crushing of the last of the Plantagenets on Bosworth 

 field in the epidemic of 'sweating sickness' that ensued. 



Our late war with Spain was followed by an epidemic disorder 

 which spread extensively throughout the United States, and which has 

 attracted but little attention from our public economists, for the 

 Teason that it has been suggested to few to see the results in a com- 

 prehensive survey of the broad area involved in the extension of the 

 disease. The malady spread from the eastern and southern borders 

 of the United States to the Middle West, and thence in regular progres- 

 sion to the Pacific Slope, including in its progress not merely the 

 States where there are efficient health boards, possessing ample powers 

 and trained officials, operating with modern methods, such as New 

 York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois; but also the as yet partially 



