HEALTH EXPERIMENTS IN THE FRENCH ARMY. 207 



theory that pure water is a preservative against typhoid fever. 

 It is probably more apparent than real. It concerns the attend- 

 ants on the sick in the military hospitals. These men can hardly 

 be exposed to the danger of drinking contaminated water, and 

 yet many of their number fall victims to each typhoid epidemic. 

 In their case the disease seems to have a real contagion. But it 

 should be remembered that the permanence of their service with 

 the sick undermines their strength until the system no longer 

 resists the action of the morbid germs, to which, moreover, they 

 are exposed in a thousand ways. Their case is no exception to 

 the rule that, under ordinary conditions of life, typhoid fever is 

 propagated only by impure drinking water. 



With dysentery that other enemy of the soldier, both in gar- 

 rison and during campaign French military hygiene has not 

 proved itself so successful. Until 1892 there was even a steady 

 ^increase of cases, though not of deaths. Since that time there 

 has been a diminution of cases and, in a measure, of deaths. So 

 far, the only amelioration seems to result from a constant super- 

 vision of the daily disinfecting of privies, and from a provision 

 of conveniences which spare the soldier the necessity of suddenly 

 exposing himself to the chill of night in crossing an open yard. 



With cholera, on the other hand, the most encouraging prog- 

 ress has been made. The epidemic of 1893 cruelly tried the civil 

 population of Lorient. The garrison had but a single case. This 

 was a soldier who contracted the disease in Vannes, where he had 

 been in attendance on his mother, who died of it. The same 

 experience was repeated at Brest, where the civil population 

 suffered for months together. In the garrison only two cases 

 declared themselves from first to last. In Marseilles, out of nine- 

 teen cases there were only three deaths. 



For measles and scarlatina the French army has found neither 

 remedy nor preventive. These diseases come to the barracks 

 from the civil population, among which they exist permanently. 

 Both have gone on increasing in the garrisons since 1887 measles 

 with spasmodic intermittences, scarlatina steadily. 



The most disquieting progress has been made by that strange 

 malady la grippe. This alone, from the first months of the 

 present year, will give a high rate of mortality to 1895 among the 

 military as well as the civil population. Only one conclusion can 

 so far be drawn from the experience of the army. This is the 

 simple fact that the disease is a permanent danger which military 

 physicians have henceforth to foresee as they do cholera, cerebro- 

 spinal meningitis, and diphtheria. 



The latter disease, formerly so rare among adults, has also 

 made alarming progress since 1888 among soldiers. It is now 

 hoped that the antitoxine (serum) of Dr. Roux will be as success- 



