208 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ful in dealing with the dangerous microbe in garrisons as it has 

 been in children's hospitals. 



Vaccination continues to give satisfactory results against 

 smallpox. Certain attendant dangers, which are often alleged 

 against it, are avoided by the establishment of what are called 

 centres vaccinogenes, where military physicians supervise the 

 preparation of suitable vaccine. This, in the form of a glycerin- 

 ated pulp, has been distributed to the Madagascar expedition in 

 quantities sufficient for the revaccination of all the men during 

 the voyage out, and of all the porters and coolies that may be 

 needed after the arrival on the island. 



In typhus, the lesson of the barracks confirms what has long 

 been thought to be the only safeguard against its spread. This is 

 the total isolation of cases. The disease, which is so peculiarly 

 contagious, seemed to have abandoned France (excepting certain 

 remote parts of Brittany) after the wars of the first Napoleon. 

 Two years ago it broke out among tramps in the workhouse of 

 Amiens, and soon appeared in Paris. It afterward spread among 

 the same class of the population, in and out of prison, through 

 different parts of the country. In the following year, 1894, it 

 broke out again, to the despair of the medical profession. It 

 seemed to have come back to stay, though the present prospect is 

 more favorable. During both these years there were only six 

 cases in the army. Of these, two occurred among military in- 

 firmarians who had volunteered their services for the civil hos- 

 pitals, and one was that of a gendarme whose duties brought 

 him in close contact with tramps already attacked by the disease. 



Certain lessons of hygiene, which have been learned from 

 harsh experience by the army, are not yet appreciated by the 

 general public. One of these is the necessity of keeping in hos- 

 pitals those who are undoubtedly convalescent from epidemic or 

 contagious diseases. This is sorely against the will of families, 

 and often of the patients themselves, who demand permission to 

 complete the cure at home. Formerly, when this was granted, a 

 frequent consequence was a relapse, and, oftener still, a communi- 

 cation of the disease to a new circle of the population. This has 

 been especially observed of typhoid and eruptive fevers, dysen- 

 tery, and the grippe. 



The French army also profits by all the recent discoveries in 

 destroying the germs of disease. Disinfecting apparatus has been 

 indulged in to such an extent that the health service is ready even 

 for an unusual epidemic. What the French oddly call " coal- 

 tarisation" is applied constantly to the woodwork of barracks. 

 Methods of permanent ventilation have also been adopted. Each 

 garrison is now being provided with a suitable hospital, and the 

 separate barracks have infirmaries well fitted up. 



