CONSERVING THE NATION'S MAN POWER 



271 



ice-cream factories, and 1 8 hotels and 

 restaurants were inspected. 



FINANCING THE WORK 



It soon became evident that the funds 

 at hand were entirely inadequate to meet 

 the situation. Seventy-six thousand five 

 hundred dollars was secured from local 

 sources ; the Public Health Service added 

 $30,000. But even the $106,500 thus se- 

 cured could not meet the demand for 

 rapid, wide-spread, continuous effort. At 

 this time the American National Red 

 Cross, which under the terms of its fed- 

 eral charter is authorized to conduct sani- 

 tary operations in time of pestilence, feel- 

 ing that it was its duty to assist as an 

 emergency measure in the operations 

 which had as their ultimate object the 

 protection of the health of troops, came 

 forward with an offer of assistance. 



A bureau of sanitary service was cre- 

 ated, with headquarters at Washington, 

 and an officer of the Public Health Serv- 

 ice placed in charge. Upon the recom- 

 mendation of the Surgeon General an 

 allotment of $6,800 was made for the 

 extra-cantonment zone at Little Rock. 



The method of procedure is for the 

 Red Cross to form a sanitary unit, of 

 which the Public Health Service officer 

 in charge of the zone is the director. A 

 local financier is chosen as the business 

 manager, and a chief sanitary inspector, 

 assistant inspectors, public health nurses, 

 bacteriologists, and clerks are appointed 

 by the director of the Red Cross bureau 

 of sanitary service. Foremen and labor- 

 ers are employed locally by the director 

 of the unit. 



Parenthetically, it may be stated that 

 sanitary units have been formed at all of 

 the places in which the Public Health 

 Service is conducting extra-cantonment 

 sanitary operations. 



DAILY HEALTH BULLETINS 



In order to attack an enemy, it is nec- 

 essary to know where that enemy is. 

 One of the functions of the Public 

 Health Service is to collect data relating 

 to the prevalence of communicable dis- 

 ease, in order that sanitarians throughout 

 the United States may know what dis- 

 eases to guard against. These reports 



are received daily from all parts of the 

 United States, and, in addition, Ameri- 

 can consuls throughout the world keep 

 the Public Health Service informed as 

 to the sanitary conditions prevailing at 

 the points at which they are stationed. 

 This latter information is used in the 

 operation of the maritime quarantines. 

 Once a week this material is published 

 in the Public Health Reports, and thus 

 made available for immediate use. 



As soon as war was declared an ar- 

 rangement was made with the Surgeon 

 General of the Army and the Surgeon 

 General of the Navy whereby they were 

 forwarded daily a complete resume of the 

 reports received by the Public Health 

 Service. It soon became evident, how- 

 ever, that in the administration of the 

 extra-cantonment zones it was necessary 

 to establish a series of model sickness 

 registration areas, so that prompt and ef- 

 fective steps might be taken to stamp ou 

 disease among the civilian population be- 

 fore it had had opportunity to spread to 

 troops or to gain a foothold in the extra- 

 cantonment communitv. 



Each officer in charge was, therefore, 

 instructed to make all necessary arrange- 

 ments with the physicians within his 

 zone, to report immediately all cases of 

 certain communicable diseases occurring 

 in their practice. Card forms and 

 franked envelopes were supplied them 

 for forwarding this information. A simi- 

 lar arrangement was made with the un- 

 dertakers to check up those cases which 

 died without medical attendance or in 

 which a report had not been made. A 

 reciprocal daily interchange of informa- 

 tion regarding the occurrence of com- 

 municable diseases in the cantonment and 

 in the extra-cantonment zone was ar- 

 ranged with the sanitary officer in charge 

 of the camp. The information received 

 of disease occurrence among troops is 

 regarded as confidential and is used only 

 as a means of checking up diseases in the 

 surrounding area. 



All of the data collected in this way is 

 summarized in a morning report and 

 forwarded to the Public Health Service 

 Bureau in Washington. Here it is care- 

 fully spotted on maps and collected into 

 one daily report, copies of which are for- 



