AN EXHIBIT OF MILITARY HYGIENE 



275 



wounds. Typlioid fever in the i^ast was the 

 worst scourge of the military canij). It killed 

 14 per 1,000 of the British soldiers in the 

 Boer War, and 15 per 1,000 of our own sol- 

 diers during the Spanish War. Of the Amer- 

 ican soldiers in the Spanish War in 1898, 142 

 in 1,000 were sick with typhoid and 15 died, 

 while only 14 in 1,000 were wounded in 

 battle and 2 died. Today improved camp 

 sanitation and above all antityphoid vac- 



Cross field work, particularly in the typhus 

 infected districts in Serbia; supplies from 

 the Manhattan Chapter of the American 

 Eed Cross; the improved "trench stretcher," 

 Avhich is so constructed that it can be sepa- 

 rated into halves along the middle line, al- 

 lowing the attendant to transfer the wounded 

 man to a cot by slipping the stretcher out 

 from under him at each side; the lungmotor, 

 loaned by the Life Saving Devices Company, 



The exigencies of trench warfare call not only upon modern inventiveness in the preparation of 

 safety appliances for the soldier, but also borrow from the war trappings of the past. At the left is a 

 steel helmet, such as are being worn by the soldiers of the French Republic ; at the right a primitive 

 type of gas mask from the equipment of a soldier who was wounded at Verdun and died on the way back 

 from the front in an ambulance of tlie American volunteer corps 



cination offer almost complete protection 

 against this disease. Vaccination against 

 typhoid was first introduced in the American 

 army in 1909, and made compulsory in 1912. 

 The result was a reduction in the typhoid 

 rate from 3.2 per 1,000 in 1908 to .03 in 

 1913. When 10,759 troops were encamped 

 at Jacksonville in ]898, there were 1,729 

 cases of typhoid and 248 deaths, while 

 among 20,000 troops encamped in a similar 

 region during the Texas maneuvers of 1912, 

 there were only two cases of typhoid and no 

 deaths. 



The care of the wounded is demonstrated 

 by a series of objects: models showing Eed 



and used to restore respiration in cases of 

 gas poisoning or drowning; and a machine, 

 run by a small electric motor, used as a suc- 

 tion apparatus to dispose of excess amounts 

 of blood and mucus during field operations. 

 Of particular interest is the group of ob- 

 jects illustrating the malady known as 

 "trench foot," a gangrenous condition con- 

 tracted by soldiers standing for days in wa- 

 ter, as they frequently have to do in the 

 trenches. It has been recently discovered in 

 France that this disease is not the result of 

 simple chill, but of invasion by molds, such 

 as Pencillium r/laucum, which enter from 

 damp and filthy socks, penetrate cracks in 



