72 TYPHOID FEVER 



pans and otherwise polluted their clothing and person, and then 

 returned to their mess tents and handled food for themselves and 

 passed it to their neighbors without even washing their hands. It 

 was estimated that in some regiments at least 60 per cent, of the cases 

 were contracted through lack of personal cleanliness and the conse- 

 quent pollution of clothing, bedding, tentage, food, etc. Flies served 

 as carriers of the infection. They swarmed over infected matter in 

 the latrines and then visited and fed on the food prepared for the 

 soldiers at the mess tents. In some instances when lime had recently 

 been spread over the fecal matter in the latrines, flies with their feet 

 whitened with lime were seen on the food. Flies carry the bacilli on 

 their bodies mechanically and pollute what they subsequently touch and 

 they eat infected matter, swallowing the bacilli, which they subse- 

 quently deposit with their own excretions. In some camps the water- 

 supply was contaminated by the natural drainage from the infected 

 earth. 



At Jacksonville, Fla., it was probable that infection through inhala- 

 tion was a minor factor in the spread of the disease. Change of loca- 

 tion did not rid the soldiers of the infection, because they carried it 

 with them, in their intestines, on their hands, in their clothing, blankets 

 and tentage. They even transported the infection with them to Cuba 

 and Porto Rico. These are fair samples of the dissemination of 

 typhoid not only in military but in civil life, for the difference is only 

 one of degree. Every village is a small camp and every city a larger 

 one. Typhoid in the past was more prevalent in military than in civil 

 life because in our more permanent homes we dispose of our excreta 

 more effectively. Had we not learned to do so, urban life would have 

 remained impossible as it once was. 



It must not be inferred from the above brief account of typhoid 

 in 1898 that our soldiers were less cleanly or more ignorant than those 

 of other nations. When the Franco-German war began, every corps of 

 the German army was infected with typhoid and the second division of 

 the eleventh corps was at that time suffering from a marked epidemic 

 of this disease. The infection was not confined to the Prussians, but 

 extended to every contingent of the German army. The seeds of the 

 disease carried with them rapidly bore fruit, especially among the 

 troops besieging Metz and later at Paris. Within less than two months 



