GUARDING THE HEALTH OF ARMIES 69 
cent of the British soldiers died of 
disease, the Franco-Prussian 
war of 1870-71, 14 per cent of the 
French soldiers perished in the same 
way. The German forces in the Franco- 
Prussian war, the English army in the 
Boer war and the Japanese who fought 
Russia in 1906 lost in each case about 
24 per cent of their men from disease, 
a splendid record compared to that of 
earlier wars, but still one that represents 
a fearful waste of human life. In the 
Boer war the English lost over 14,000 
men from disease and less than 8,000 
from wounds. 
and in 
In our own Spanish- 
American campaign, typhoid fever alone 
cost more than fourteen lives for every 
thousand soldiers, and bullets only two 
for every thousand. 
The chief diseases of the camp are 
those which, like typhoid fever, are 
caused by sewage pollution of water and 
food supplies. In the Spanish war the 
typhoid fever, which affected one out of 
every five of our volunteer soldiers, was 
4 
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mainly due to careless exposure of 
excreta and the spread of the germs to 
food by flies. In a modern military 
camp the excreta are received in a 
trench away from the water supply, 
the kitchen and food stores, and are 
immediately covered with earth to 
prevent access of flies. 
The water supply of the army is safe- 
guarded with the greatest care. When 
the troops are in the field all water for 
their use is purified either by heat, 
filtration or chemical disinfectants, and 
the most stringent regulations forbid 
drinking from roadside wells and streams. 
The Japanese use a field filter in which 
the water is strained and at the same 
time disinfected by chemicals. In the 
French army the water supply of the 
troops is sterilized by the use of ultra- 
violet light. 
The most common procedure for 
purifying water in the field is perhaps 
sterilization by heat, or distillation. 
The Forbes sterilizer (on this principle) 
Model of the Forbes water sterilizer used in the United States Army for the purification of the 
water supply of troops in the field. From the military hygiene exhibit in the hall of public health 
