On the Fringe of the Great FightNasmith, George Gallie
History
On the Fringe of the Great Fight
Nasmith, George Gallie
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
The use of raw milk was forbidden in the army, and condensed milk was
issued instead. Sometimes "blown" cans of this were sent in for
examination and found to be infected with gas producing organisms.
Whenever such occurred, the report would be forwarded back through the
system to England and the manufacturer would be apprised of the fact
and checked up on his methods. Canned foods of various sorts were also
brought in for examination, but nothing of a harmful character ever
discovered. The food supply of the British Army, as a matter of fact,
was of the highest quality and had been subjected to rigid examination
by the Government inspectors during its preparation; practically none
of it was ever found to be bad.
Another unusual problem arose out of the fact that several soldiers
had contracted anthrax, both in England and in France, and the shaving
brushes issued were suspected of being the cause. We undertook to
search them for anthrax spores, but found it was too long and tedious
a job for a field laboratory, for the brushes were full of spores of
all kinds. Later on in England anthrax was actually found by other
bacteriologists in some of these brushes, according to reports
published.
These few examples taken at random will serve to demonstrate the
varied character of the work of a field laboratory, and to show that a
certain amount of experience is necessary in order to handle some of
the problems affectively. We were peculiarly fortunate in our combined
experience. Major Rankin, a first rate pathologist and bacteriologist
of the government of Alberta, had been in charge of the government
laboratory at Siam for five years previous to the war, and knew
tropical medicine like a book, while Captain Ellis had carried on
research work for three years in the Rockefeller hospital laboratories
in New York and was thoroughly conversant with all the most recent
work in vaccine and serum therapy. Consequently there was practically
nothing that we could not tackle between the three of us, either in
bacteriology, pathology, sanitation or treatment of epidemic disease.
Wherever an action was about to occur on the front the hospitals were
evacuated of all sick and wounded in order to obtain the maximum
number of empty beds. Consequently when fighting was going on the
hospitals were very busy but the laboratory routine greatly decreased
except in hygienic work. We therefore undertook scientific
investigations of various kinds to keep busy and be of the maximum
use.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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