Armies -- Medical and sanitary affairs; Epidemics -- History; Medicine, Military -- History; Military hygiene
As early as the eighteenth century, successful efforts were made to
prevent, by means of energetic measures, the reappearance of plague in
Europe; the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–9 was the last war in which it
broke out. On the other hand, typhus fever continued to be the Nemesis
of belligerent armies, while a new infectious disease, cholera, entered
upon the scene and played a very important rôle in the Crimean War, and
a by no means minor rôle in the war of 1866. Along with these diseases,
typhoid fever advanced into the foreground about the middle of the last
century, and it soon turned out to be one of the most dangerous diseases
that occur among soldiers. This appearance of typhoid fever has led some
to think that the disease has prevailed extensively only in
comparatively recent times. Hirsch, however, ably defends the opposite
view; he maintains that typhoid fever was in many instances confused
with the _febres pestilentes_, _malignae_, _putridae_, and _nervosae_,
with the mucous fevers, bilious fevers, putrid fevers, &c. In discussing
the typhus-fever epidemics that occurred in the course of the Napoleonic
wars, we have several times called attention to the fact that typhoid
fever probably broke out in the form of epidemics; but it could be
diagnosed with certainty only after post-mortem examinations began to be
more frequent. At all events, typhoid fever is to-day prevalent all over
the world, and there is always danger that field-armies will be infected
with it, either in their own land or in the land of the enemy. All the
wars of the last few decades have clearly demonstrated this fact.
For a successful battle against war-pestilences, it is a fortunate
coincidence that the civil as well as the military authorities are
equally interested in their prevention. Every military leader knows how
important it is for the soldiers to keep healthy, since their efficiency
is otherwise seriously impaired. It is not our task to describe the
particular measures that are to be adopted; the manuals of military
sanitation give us accurate information regarding these matters. We
merely mention the fact that it is of great value and importance to have
physicians, who are well acquainted with hygienic problems, make a
preliminary examination of sanitary conditions in the territory through
which the soldiers will be required to pass in order to reach the scene
of hostilities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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