320 ASHFORD— APPLICATION OF SANITARY SCIENCE TO 



its culls recovered enough lumber, metal, etc., to build loi flyproof 

 latrines, 67 urinals, 23 grease traps and 16 incinerators in a month. 

 This was due to their commanding officer, Captain Starr A. Moul- 

 ton, and shows how i officer and 24 men can provide a whole area 

 occupied by the equivalent of a division with sanitary appliances and 

 sanitate an area out of nothing, remaining on good terms with ever}^- 

 body. 



The sanitary section of an Army area should be traversible in 

 all directions by automobile and is thus constantly under the eye of 

 the young sanitary officer. 



The subsection is manned by a non-commissioned officer and 

 two or three men, responsible to the section chief. They are his 

 eyes — they give no orders, but are distinguished by an armlet and 

 know everything that goes on in every nook and cranny of their ter- 

 ritory, traversible on foot or horseback. They make themselves 

 popular with shifting battalions who are only too glad of a helping 

 hand and they keep the sanitary section chief thoroughly in touch 

 with his problems. 



The man who will make area sanitation a success must be a man 

 who lives permanently in that area and who has this and nothing 

 else to think of ; who has planned and built its appliances ; who will 

 fight for them ; who will enthuse the men personally in their proper 

 use ; stimulate competition ; prevent waste ; prevent heady unit com- 

 manders from blocking proper sanitary functions in his section ; who 

 will make himself a helpful and not a carping critic ; who has a 

 remedy and can do things as well as talk ; who is not unreasonable 

 but just a normal, sane, well-bred, well-educated gentleman with a 

 keen sense of humor and an indomitable will ; with his mental proc- 

 esses backed by scientific facts, his actions by common sense. In 

 short, a man with enough of the prose of material results and the 

 poetry of an invincible spirit to make a plan succeed, even if that 

 plan is not a perfect one. 



That is the sort of a man we want. 



This leaves the division sanitary inspector with his two squads 

 free to run the machine and not to make and run it at one and the 

 same time. He administers the area and if he is at the front he has 

 some time to devote to his legitimate duty, that of providing trench 



