1915] Anti-Typhoid Inoculation 42S 



WEEKLY EVENIXCt MEETING, 



Friday, April 23, 1915. 



Donald Hood, C.V.O. M.D. F.R.C.P., Yice-Presidenb, 

 in the Chair. 



Major P. S. Leleax, R.A.M.C. 

 Anti-Typhoid Inoculation. 



The subject provisionally selected for my discourse to-night was that 

 of " Military Hygiene of the War," but the earliest attempt at 

 detailed preparation indicated that so extensive a field could not be 

 covered — much less satisfactorily dealt with — in the allotted time. 

 It was, therefore, thought that greater deference to the audience 

 would be displayed by an attempt to deal more thoroughly with a 

 single section of this vast field, and, with the approval of the 

 authorities, anti-typhoid inoculation was chosen not only on account 

 of its scientific interest, but as a matter of considerable practical 

 importance at the moment. 



This method of prophylaxis is so much more applicable to the 

 protection of aggregations of men than of individuals, that it has 

 hitherto remained a military rather than a civil method, and hence 

 has not come under the notice of the civilian practitioner to an 

 extent which has led to his mastering its details as fully as the 

 medical officer has perforce had to do. Still less has it been con- 

 sidered by the non-medical part of the community at large. It i& 

 probably owing to the latter fact that anti-typhoid inoculation has, 

 to our regret, not yet been made compulsory in the British Army. 



So long, however, as medical officers were not interfered with in 

 their elforts to persuade their men to voluntarily present themselves 

 for inoculation, the principal result of the voluntary system was 

 that an additional task of persuasion was thrown upon the hard- 

 worked medical service. Matters assumed a different aspect when 

 the formation of a national army led to the obtrusion of the anti- 

 everything busybodies, with their wonted capacity for misrepresentation 

 and a mischievous energy supported by funds which might have been 

 devoted to a good cause. Indifferent to all considerations bat that 

 of proclaiming their faddist doctrines, these obstructionists thrust 

 their organized influence between medical officers and men, and 



N.B. — The illustrations are by permission of Messrs. J. & A. Churchill, 

 the publishers of " Sanitation in War," by Major Lelean. 



