Armies -- Medical and sanitary affairs; Epidemics -- History; Medicine, Military -- History; Military hygiene
Recent investigations in the field of medicine turn over to the other
sciences all questions regarding ultimate causes, and confine themselves
to what is actually observed. We know that the agents responsible for
infectious diseases are specific minute organisms which must be present
in the system to produce the disease in question, and that these
micro-organisms are conveyed from place to place by infected persons, by
intermediaries, on articles to which they have attached themselves, in
contaminated food, in drinking-water, and in many other ways.
Investigators have studied the conditions in which these infective
agents live and the manner in which they are disseminated, they have
discovered methods of determining the nature of the disease in a very
short time, and they have come to recognize the danger of coming in
contact with germ-bearers, that is, with persons, healthy or
convalescent, who have these micro-organisms in their systems without
being themselves sick. Medical science is now endeavouring, by means of
systematic procedure and splendid organization, to guard soldiers
against the danger of infection; good drinking-water is provided, the
men and the rooms in which they live are kept clean, persons suffering
from infectious diseases are isolated, all rooms and articles used by
patients are disinfected, infected divisions of troops are quartered by
themselves, germ-bearers are watched for and discovered, &c. The success
of such measures is well known. The knowledge gained and profited by in
times of peace is also applied in times of war, and to-day we are able
to confine pestilences within much narrower limits than was formerly
possible. In order to do this, however, we must have, in addition to an
efficient system of transporting and feeding troops, physicians who are
well informed in regard to hygiene and bacteriology.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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