DISEASES PREVALENT IN THE ARMY 297 



tion and what might have been slight infections under ordinary 

 conditions became serious ones. 



The disease yields readily to treatment and as soon as a man 

 could be sent to the rear to a dentist he could soon be cured by 

 local applications of dyes and caustics. 



The disease was serious, not because of the deaths, for there 

 is practically no mortality, but because it produced a consider- 

 able number of invalids, each requiring care and treatment 

 from the medical personnel. The disease is not a new one, and 

 there is no justification for the term " Trench Mouth." It is 

 an ulcerative or pseudo-membranous gingivitis, when confined 

 to the gums, or stomatitis when the mucous membrane of the 

 mouth is involved or tonsilitis or pharyngitis; in the last two 

 locations the condition is commonly referred to as Vincent's 

 Angina. 



INFECTIOUS JAUNDICE (SPIROCHETAL JAUNDICE) 



This disease, long known as Weil's Disease, was the cause of 

 illness in 78 men, of whom five died. Numerically, therefore, 

 it is quite unimportant, but because of its interesting epi- 

 demiology it deserves a few words. It is caused by the Spiro- 

 cheta ictero-hemorrhagica, a common parasite of rats which 

 was first described by Inada and Ido in Japan in 1915. The 

 infection is characterized by irregular fever, well marked 

 jaundice which usually appears about the fourth day of the 

 disease, a tendency to hemorrhages from the mucous surfaces 

 and into the tissues and hemorrhagic herpes or fever sores. 



The disease occurred in small epidemics at various times 

 and places in the armies of our Allies, the British, French and 

 Italian, and the few cases occurring among our troops may have 

 had some connection with these. The Japanese noted that the 

 epidemics were limited to small groups, such as a family or a 

 small group of soldiers in barracks; in mines, for example, it 

 would be limited to the workers in a certain part of the mine. 



The spirochete is exceedingly small and delicate, and about 



