Lest We Forget: World War Stories

by John G. Thompson; Inez Bigwood

BACILLI AND BULLETS[ToC]

Sir William Osler, one of the greatest medical men in the world, told the soldiers in the English training camps that he wanted to help them to get a true knowledge of their foes. The officers had impressed the soldiers with the truth that it was always necessary to find out where their enemies were and how many they were. But Sir William Osier told them of other invisible enemies which they should most fear, and fight against. "While the bullets from your foes are to be dreaded," he said, "the bacilli are far more dangerous." Indeed in the wars of the world, the two have been as Saul and David,—the one slaying thousands, the other tens of thousands.

He continued, "I can never see a group of recruits marching to the depot without asking what percentage of these fine fellows will die from wounds, and what percentage will perish miserably from neglect of ordinary sanitary precautions. It is bitter enough to lose thousands of the best of our young men in a hideous war, but it adds terribly to the tragedy to think that more than one half of the losses may be due to preventable disease. Typhus fever, malaria, cholera, enteric, and dysentery have won more victories than powder and shot. Some of the diseases need no longer be dreaded. Typhus and malaria, which one hundred years ago routed a great English army in the expedition against Antwerp, are no longer formidable foes. But enough such foes remain, as we found by sad experience in South Africa. Of the 22,000 lives lost in that war—can you believe it?—the bullets accounted for only 8000, the bacilli for 14,000. In the long, hard campaign before us, more men will go into the field than ever before in the history of the Empire. Before it is too late, let us take every possible precaution to guard against a repetition of such disasters. I am here to warn you soldiers against enemies more subtle, more dangerous, and more fatal than the Germans, enemies against which no successful battle can be fought without your intelligent coöperation. So far the world has only seen one great war waged with the weapons of science against these foes. Our allies, the Japanese, went into the Russian campaign prepared as fully against bacilli as against bullets, with the result that the percentage of deaths from disease was the lowest that has ever been attained in a great war. Which lesson shall we learn? Which example shall we follow, Japan, or South Africa with its sad memories?

"We are not likely to have to fight three scourges, typhus, malaria, and cholera, though the possibility of the last has to be considered. But there remain dysentery, pneumonia, and enteric.

"Dysentery has been for centuries one of the most terrible of camp diseases, killing thousands, and, in its prolonged damage to health, it is one of the most fatal of foes to armies. So far as we know, it is conveyed by water, and only by carrying out strictly, under all circumstances, the directions about boiling water, can it be prevented. It is a disease which, even under the best of circumstances, cannot always be prevented; but with care there should never again be widespread outbreaks in camps themselves.

"Pneumonia is a much more difficult disease to prevent. Many of us, unfortunately, carry the germ with us. In these bright days all goes well in a holiday camp like this; but when the cold and the rain come, and the long marches, the resisting forces of the body are lowered, the enemy, always on the watch, overpowers the guards, rushes the defenses, and attacks the lungs. Be careful not to neglect coughs and colds. A man in good condition should be able to withstand the wettings and exposures that lower the system, but in a winter campaign, pneumonia causes a large amount of sickness and is one of the serious enemies of the soldier.

"Above all others one disease has proved most fatal in modern warfare—enteric, or typhoid fever. Over and over again it has killed thousands before they ever reached the fighting line. The United States troops had a terrible experience in the Spanish-American War. In six months, between June and November, among 107,973 officers and men in 92 volunteer regiments, 20,738, practically one fifth of the entire number, had typhoid fever, and 1580 died. The danger is chiefly from persons who have already had the disease and who carry the germs in their intestines, harmless to them, but capable of infecting barracks or camps. It was probably by flies and by dust carrying the germs that the bacilli were so fatal in South Africa. Take to heart these figures: there were 57,684 cases of typhoid fever, of which 19,454 were invalided, and 8022 died. More died from the bacilli of this disease than from the bullets of the Boers. Do let this terrible record impress upon you the importance of carrying out with religious care the sanitary regulations.

"One great advance in connection with typhoid fever has been made of late years, and of this I am come specially to ask you to take advantage. An attack of an infectious disease so alters the body that it is no longer susceptible to another attack of the same disease; once a person has had scarlet fever, smallpox, or chicken pox, he is not likely to have a second attack. He is immune. When bacilli make a successful entry into our bodies, they overcome the forces that naturally protect the system, and grow; but the body puts up a strong fight, all sorts of anti-bodies are formed in the blood, and if recovery takes place, the patient is safe for a few years at least against that disease.

"It was an Englishman, Jenner, who, in 1798, found that it was possible to produce this immunity by giving a person a mild attack of the disease, or of one very much like it. Against smallpox all of you have been vaccinated—a harmless, safe, and effective measure. Let me give you a war illustration. General Wood of the United States Army told me that, when he was at Santiago, reports came that in villages not far distant smallpox was raging, and the people were without help of any kind. He called for volunteers, all men who showed scars of satisfactory vaccination. Groups of these soldiers went into the villages, took care of the smallpox patients, cleaned up the houses, stayed there until the epidemic was over, and not one of them took the disease. Had not those men been vaccinated, at least 99 per cent of them would have taken smallpox.