446 
Experience  0}  a  Pharmacist,  Etc. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
July,  1920. 
obtained  only  when  placed  in  incubator  temperature  immediately 
after  taking.  A  case  developed  at  an  aviation  camp,  twenty  kilo- 
meters to  the  south  of  us.  It  was  necessary  to  transport  the  300 
men  to  the  laboratory  to  be  cultured. 
At  this  same  aviation  camp  there  was  an  epidemic  of  Vincent's 
Angina  or  as  generally  termed,  Trench  Mouth.  However,  it  bears 
no  relation  to  the  trenches,  it  probably  being  no  more  prevalent  on 
the  firing  line  than  in  the  Service  of  Supply.  The  lesions  which 
occasionally  resemble  secondary  specific  patches  are  very  painful  and 
may  be  found  in  any  part  of  the  mouth  or  pharynx.  Smears  show  the 
presence  of  a  long  slender  fusiform  bacillus  and  a  spiral  organism 
having  three  to  twelve  undulations.  The  latter  are  best  observed 
in  a  dark  field. 
Dysentery  was  widespread  throughout  the  A.  K.  F.,  it  being 
almost  as  prevalent  in  the  S.  O.  S.  as  in  the  Advance  Zone.  How- 
ever, the  number  of  positive  cultures  and  agglutinations  was  re- 
markably low.  Frequent  cultures  were  made  of  the  water,  milk 
and  food  supply  and  the  hands  of  cooks  and  kitchen  police  but  in 
only  one  instance  were  organisms  of  the  typhoid-colon-dysentery 
group  isolated. 
While  I  have  no  exact  data  on  the  influenza  and  pneumonia 
cases  in  our  organization,  the  number  was  comparatively  small. 
The  several  thousand  patients  and  hospital  personnel  being  dis- 
tributed among  some  twenty  isolated  buildings  in  the  hills,  coupled 
with  stringent  preventative  measures,  enabled  a  maintenance  of  the 
upper  hand  and  control  of  the  epidemic.  The  nursing  and  medical 
attention  were  equalled  by  few  civil  institutions.  These  cases  in- 
volved considerable  clinical  laboratory  work,  viz.,  leucocyte  counts, 
blood  cultures  and  typing  of  the  urine  and  sputum.  White  mice 
were  unobtainable  for  grouping  the  pneumococcus,  therefore  the 
Avery  method  was  employed. 
Great  difficulty  was  experienced  throughout  France  with  natural 
amboceptor  in  guinea  pig  serum,  this  condition  being  met  with  very 
seldom  by  workers  here  in  the  States.  As  high  as  four  consecutive 
pigs  have  been  killed  or  bled  from  the  heart,  finding  that  the  especial 
complement  was  in  itself  capable  of  producing  hemolysis,  therefore 
rendering  it  unfit  for  use  in  the  Wasserman  technique  generally 
^ployed.  The  inadequate  supply  of  guinea  pigs  was  a  great  prob- 
lem, they  being  furnished  by  the  Bureau  of  Farms  and  Gardens  of 
the  American  Red  Cross,  located  in  the  Paris  district. 
