310 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE 



tract. If we deduct this respiratory rate of 15.75 from the 

 total rate for disease, it would leave the exceedingly low rate 

 of 3.07 for all others. 



We may conclude, therefore, with this evidence, that it is 

 possible to prevent deaths, under conditions of mobilization and 

 warfare, from all diseases except the respiratory; that so far 

 as such diseases are concerned we have advanced but little, and 

 that the field for future investigation and research for all con- 

 cerned in public health and medicine lies in the diseases of the 

 respiratory tract. 



Some progress has already been made ; secondary pneumonias 

 from the haemolytic streptococcus are now recognized and 

 methods for their control are now available. There are those 

 Who believe that epidemic influenza, and the influenza of inter- 

 epidemic years, is caused by the bacillus of influenza, but even 

 so, there does not seem to be at the moment of writing any 

 method of preventing an epidemic which has once started. 

 This is, perhaps, the greatest of the public health problems at 

 present awaiting solution. 



Y 



