On the Fringe of the Great Fight

by George Gallie Nasmith

It is impossible, however, to prevent our soldiers billeted in France from occasionally contracting communicable diseases from the French civilian population, and it is obvious that as there were from 3 to 5 per cent. of the soldiers uninoculated against typhoid fever, we would get some cases of typhoid fever.

Besides this, unless further precautions were taken, the army would be susceptible to disease such as cholera, dysentery and the like should there be cases of these in the war zone.

We therefore arrive at the conclusion that, as there might be some "carriers" and undiagnosed cases of disease among soldiers and civilians excreting disease germs, additional means must be adopted to destroy such germs before they could reach other soldiers. This is the place where sanitation and hygiene steps in, and it is in these matters that the army of Great Britain is unexcelled by any army in the field to-day.

Since the group of intestinal diseases can originate only from the excretions of people who are giving off the specific germs, it would be logical to endeavour to destroy such excreta or render it incapable of contaminating water or food. This is done. All excreta behind the front line and reserve trenches is destroyed in numerous incinerators, which are kept burning night and day. The British Army is the only army which has succeeded in doing this. All excreta which cannot be burned is buried so that it cannot be reached by flies.

As it may happen through accident or carelessness that water supplies have been contaminated, it is the rule to sterilize all water used for drinking purposes, either by boiling, by the use of bisulphate of soda, or by chlorine. The chlorine method is the one in general use in the British Army, as it is in all of the other allied armies.

The possibility of using chlorine in the field was brought to the attention of the British Army authorities by the publication of a method evolved by the writer in 1909. According to this method a stock solution of hypochlorite of lime was added to the water, the amount necessary for any given water being determined by a solution of potassium iodide and starch. This was particularly useful in the trenches where it was possible to accurately sterilize a pail or a barrel of water if necessary. Small tablets of hypochlorite of lime, each one sufficient to sterilize a pail of water, were also ordered and issued to the first Canadian division, and proved useful.

The great bulk of the water supply, however, is sterilized directly in the water carts by adding one or two spoonfuls of the dry chloride of lime to the partly filled water cart, the mixing being done by the addition of the rest of the water and by agitation during the trip back to the place where the cart is stationed.

In addition to this, large mobile filter units, after a plan draughted in September, 1914, and officially suggested by the writer in 1915 after experience in the field, were built and issued to all the British armies. These mobile filters are capable of filtering and sterilizing large quantities of water and delivering it to water carts or into stand pipes, ready to drink. A check is kept on the efficiency of the filtration and sterilization by mobile field laboratories.

Standing orders forbid the use of unboiled milk in the army as well as fresh uncooked vegetables, so that there is little danger from these sources. When ones sees the peasants watering their vegetables with sewage, the reason for such regulations are apparent.

As it is possible for flies to carry typhoid bacilli and other disease germs from excreta to food, a constant war is waged against these filthy insects. Flies breed chiefly in manure, and one fly will produce many millions of flies in the course of one summer. The obvious method of keeping down flies is to destroy their breeding places, and therefore it is the duty of everybody concerned to see that all manure piles in the army area are gotten rid of. Some of it is burned, some spread on the fields, some buried, and so forth. On the other hand food is screened from flies whenever possible, and privy pits made inaccessible to them by the same means. On the whole the house fly has not yet, in so far as we know, played any great part in causing epidemic disease in the British Army in France, because so many of the precautions outlined have been carried out.