60 
PATHOLOGY: LOVE AND DAVENPORT 
Diphtheria, scarlet fever and German measles are from one-half to one- 
fourth as common in colored as white men. This experience with morbidity 
in camps agrees with the census mortality rates of civil life. Thus, for the 
registration area of the United States (1915) the rates for white and colored 
respectively are: for scarlet fever, 3.7 and 1.3; for diseases of the lar3nix, 8 
and 4. Also while admissions in camp for measles-complicated-by-lobar- 
pneumonia are slightly greater in colored than in white troops, cases of meas- 
les-complicated-by-broncho-pneumonia are only about half as common in 
colored troops. 
Influenza in the troops during 1917 had a rate of 28 for colored men — 
about half that for white men (58) ; and during the past ten years only about 
one-fourth. It is commonly held that colored children are much less apt to 
be attacked by the organism of infantile paralysis, which, like influenza, 
enters the body through the naso-pharynx. Thus, in general, the diseases 
of the upper respiratory tract are much less common in colored than white 
people. 
In general the skin, not only on the surface of the body but also that which 
infolded to form the lining of the mouth and naso-pharynx, is much more 
resistant to micro-organism in negroes than in whites. The white skin seems 
to be relatively a degenerate skin in this respect. 
Moreover, the nervous system of the uninfected negroes shows fewer cases 
of instability than that of whites. Thus, there is only about one-third as 
much neurasthenia recorded in camps in 1917; about one-third as many cases 
of constitutional psychopathic state and one-half as much alcoholism in 
colored as in white troops. Functional cardiac disturbances of nervous 
origin are half as common. Eye defects are relatively few, and there is about 
half as much liability to refractive errors as in whites. Ear diseases are about 
half as common. 
Metabolically, the uninfected colored troops seem less liable to disturbances 
than white troops. Diabetes is only half as common in the negroes as the 
whites and about the same is true of urinary calculi. Inflammations of the 
gall bladder are also much less frequent. 
To sum up: The colored troops are relatively less resistant to diseases of 
the lungs and pleura as well as to certain general diseases, like tuberculosis 
and smallpox; they are also much more frequently infected with venereal 
diseases and suffer wide spread complications of these diseases. 
But the uninfected negro is highly resistant to diseases of the skin, mouth 
and throat. He seems to have more stable nerves, has better eyes and metab- 
olizes better. Thus, in many respects the uninfected colored troops show 
themselves to be constitutionally better physiological machines than the 
white men. 
(Publication approved by the Ofl&ce of the Surgeon General.) 
