48 



SANITARY ENTOMOLOGY 



by hastily built incinerators, or tlie manure stacked and treated to kill 

 flies. Ditches and standing water cannot be drained. Tliey must be 

 treated to kill insect life in them. Tem])orary hospitals abound and 

 must be protected from flies and vermin. The men sleep out of doors 

 or in scanty shelters, even in pig pens, barns, etc., wherever they can 

 find shelter in inclement weatiier. 



Insect infestation in these must be reduced to a minimum. When lice 

 abound, hastily constructed devices must be installed or the clothing 

 treated by chemicals. Tiie trenches and dugouts have to be sprayed with 

 creosote oils to keep away flies and kill vermin. Terrible stenches arise 

 from dead bodies and these must be buried or treated to prevent fly 

 breeding. In other words, everything here must be done hastily but 



_C-R055 5UTJ0N 

 Fig. 7. — Urine soakage pit, in cross section (Mann's modification from Lelean). 



effectively^ for tomorrow the work may have to be done all over some- 

 where beyond or behind. The larger the body of men assembled and the 

 greater the carnage, the more serious the diseases of all kinds and 

 especialh' those carried by insects. 



In the great European War the greatest diseases were those borne 

 by lice. In fact there is plentj' of evidence that louse-borne diseases 

 have been among the worst in many wars of the past. Three serious 

 diseases whicli ravaged the trenches are carried only by lice, — tj'phus 

 fever, trench fever, and European relapsing fever. Millions of the 

 Serbian nation were wiped out by typhus fever. The Roumanian nation 

 was swept by tj^phus and relapsing fever. Russia, Germany, Austria and 

 France sufi^ered terribly from these louse-borne diseases. Trench fever 

 spread back from the trenches into the cities. And yet all of these 

 diseases can be controlled absolutely by suppressing the lice. It is easy 

 to see how serious it is if a case of any of these diseases enters the 



