CONSERVING THE NATION'S MAN POWER 



273 



warded to the medical departments of the 

 army and the navy. 



the; health cavalry moves 



The value of this service cannot he 

 overstated. It was reported, for ex- 

 ample, that an epidemic of typhoid fever 

 had broken out at a city from which ioo 

 drafted men were about to depart to 

 a cantonment in a neighboring State. 

 There were about 15 new cases each 

 day, and two cases occurred among the 

 drafted men. 



Immediately the laboratory car "Wy- 

 man," with its full complement of officers 

 and men, was dispatched to that point. 

 All water, supplies, ice-cream, and milk 

 were carefully investigated. The source 

 of the epidemic from a leaky storage 

 reservoir was discovered, a chlorination 

 plant was installed while repairs were 

 being made, and the outbreak promptly 

 snuffed out. In the meantime, the Sur- 

 geon General of the Army ordered the 

 drafted men held until their vaccination 

 against typhoid should have been com- 

 pleted. During this period it was possible 

 to discover other infected individuals. 

 Thus, not only were measures taken for 

 the prevention of the introduction of ty- 

 phoid fever into a cantonment, but, what 

 is perhaps even more important, infected 

 individuals were prevented from travel- 

 ing interstate and spreading the disease 

 among civilian communities. 



In July, a typhoid fever epidemic broke 

 out in the immediate vicinity of an army 

 post at which some 12,000 soldiers were 

 stationed. A survey developed the fact 

 that the sewage disposal system in the 

 civil community was very primitive and 

 the water supply extremely insanitary. 

 There was no local health code ; the milk 

 supply was uncontrolled and the scav- 

 enging system extremely bad. 



Operations were immediately begun. 

 The bad conditions obtaining at the pump- 

 ing station, settling basins, and reservoirs 

 were corrected ; plans were put in force 

 for the extension of the sewer and water 

 mains ; the food depots were put in a 

 sanitary condition ; the dairies were in- 

 spected ; epidemiological investigations 

 were made of the cases of typhoid f evor ; 

 over 4,000 people were vaccinated against 



the disease in the first week of opera- 

 tions ; the medical inspection of school 

 children was instituted, and the entire 

 community placed upon a sanitary basis 

 which it never knew before and which it 

 will probably never forget. 



AN ICE-CREAM PARLOR BECOMES A 

 TYPHOID DISPENSARY 



At another place, which is visited 

 weekly by several thousand officers and 

 enlisted men of the army, there was an 

 explosive outbreak of typhoid fever. The 

 death rate was high. The bulk of the 

 cases were traced to a single ice-cream 

 factory. Several occurred among per- 

 sons who had been vaccinated against 

 typhoid fever. 



This simply meant that while these in- 

 dividuals were protected against the dose 

 of typhoid bacilli which they would ordi- 

 narily receive from infected water, in 

 this instance the dose in the ice-cream 

 was so massive as to break down entirely 

 the immunity which had been artificially 

 created by the vaccination. The epidemic 

 was immediately checked, but a campaign 

 for better health is still being intensively 

 waged in this zone. 



The movement of large numbers of 

 people, which was inevitably coincident 

 to the erection and occupation of the can- 

 tonments, necessitated extraordinary pre- 

 cautions lest there be a spread of infec- 

 tious disease through the medium of rail- 

 road trains. 



On the 1 st of August a letter was ad- 

 dressed to every railroad president in the 

 United States, urging upon him the neces- 

 sity for supplying adequate and sanitary 

 toilet accommodations for the traveling 

 public in the railroad stations in and 

 around cantonments. The file of the re- 

 plies received is a remarkable exposition 

 of the genuine interest which the trans- 

 portation companies take in matters of 

 sanitary improvement. 



ONLY ONE SLACKER RAILROAD 



These offers of cooperation soon took 

 tangible form in actual building opera- 

 tions, and, so far as is known, only one 

 railroad refused to install the needed im- 

 provements. In this instance the Public 

 Health officer in charge of the extra-can- 

 tonment zone laid before the officials of 



