518 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 877 



of inquiry, and we sincerely trust that Pro- 

 fessor Chittenden and his opponents may con- 

 tinue these painstaking experiments with a 

 view of determining these vexed questions. 



We quite endorse the views of the authors 

 on the subject of food preservatives and have 

 always maintained that the addition of chem- 

 icals should not be tolerated as long as we 

 possess in pasteurization, sterilization, refrig- 

 eration, pickling and smoking efficient means. 

 The book on page 354 refers to Dr. Wiley's 

 feeding experiments in 1905-7 which demon- 

 strated " that formic aldehyde, boric acid and 

 salicylic acid are substances which when 

 added to food, even in small quantities, may 

 exercise a harmfiil effect on digestion and 

 health. Few of these agents enter normally 

 into the constitution of the human body, and 

 at least they must be regarded as foreign 

 bodies whose ingestion works no possible good, 

 and which, not being foods, do not in any 

 way make amends for the additional work of 

 elimination which their presence demands. 

 Moreover, they enable venders or manufac- 

 turers to deal with stale or badly prepared 

 food, to the prejudice of the more honest 

 tradesman." 



The chapter on School Hygiene will be read 

 with pleasure and profit by all who are inter- 

 ested in the prevention of disease and physical 

 defects and the prevention of permanent dis- 

 abilities. 



Anti-typhoid Vaccination. — In the chapter 

 on Communicable Diseases we note the follow- 

 ing paragraph : " The value of anti-typhoid 

 inoculations is now obtaining general recogni- 

 tion. The latest report of the results of anti- 

 typhoid inoculation in the British army in 

 India (Army Medical Department Report, 

 1908) show that the attack rate in inoculated 

 men is reduced to rather less than one half, 

 and the case mortality to about two thirds of 

 the rates in men who have not been inoculated. 

 The protection conferred by two inoculations 

 appears to be somewhat greater than that con- 

 ferred by one. The material generally used 

 for anti-typhoid inoculation is a suspension 

 of the dead bacilli obtained from a culture 

 killed by heat." 



We have observed very much better results 

 quoted by Major T. F. RusseU, of the medical 

 corps United States army, in The Military 

 Surgeon for June, 1909. The statistics were 

 taken from Col. Leishman's report in the 

 Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 

 1909, XII., p. 166, and indicate that for one 

 case of typhoid among the inoculated there 

 are ten among the uninoculated and that for 

 one death among the inoculated there are ten 

 among the uninoculated. Dr. Russell also 

 refers to the results of inoculations among the 

 expeditionary forces in German Southwest 

 Africa reported by Dr. Mursemold, showing 

 that the man who refused inoculation was 

 twice as liable to have typhoid as the man who 

 accepted and four times as apt to die of it. 



It is extremely gratifying to state that the 

 greatest triumph in the prevention of typhoid 

 fever in military camps has been achieved by 

 the medical corps of the United States army, 

 as shown by the experience of the maneuver 

 division at San Antonio, Texas, from March 

 10 to July 10, 1911. This division, composed 

 of 12,801 officers and men, had one case of 

 typhoid fever and no death, while the second 

 division of the seventh army corps, with 

 10,759 officers and men, assembled at Jackson- 

 ville, Fla., during the Spanish-American war 

 in 1898, had 2,693 cases of typhoid fever with 

 248 deaths. " This division," writes Col. 

 Kean, of the medical corps, in the Journal of 

 the American Medical Association, August 26, 

 1911, " was not conspicuously unfortunate in 

 its typhoid record for that time and is selected 

 because of the close similarity of its condi- 

 tions of service to those of the maneuver 

 division. The two divisions were encamped 

 in nearly the same latitude and for about the 

 same leng-th of time, -and each had a good 

 camp site and an artesian water supply of 

 unimpeachable purity." 



While it is true that camp sanitation was 

 rigidly enforced, especially as regards the dis- 

 posal of wastes, no new sanitary principle was 

 evolved, and we are forced to conclude that 

 the protective inoculations played the most 

 important role. Anti-typhoid vaccination was 



