The transfer of forty-one commissioned officers of the Coast and Geodetic Survey gave the Navy additional officers who, from their previous training and experience, immediately assumed important duties. In addition to commanding patrol boats and auxiliaries and other service afloat, their scientific attainments made them particularly useful. For example, one officer, by his experience in developing the wire-drag method of searching for hidden rocks and dangers, was well fitted for research work on the anti-submarine problem. His services were so valuable that he was ordered to London to coöperate with the British Admiralty in further study of anti-submarine devices. Officers of this service at the Naval Observatory, among other contributions, designed a new type of submarine compass binnacle and new type of aircraft compass. One of the ships of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the _Surveyor_, did excellent service at Gibraltar and shared with the _Wheeling_ and the _Venita_ the credit for a successful attack on a submarine. CHAPTER XXXIII WINNING THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE WAR THE WAR AGAINST DISEASE FOUGHT AND WON BY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT--GENERAL ORDER NO. 99--SAFETY ZONES ESTABLISHED--HOSPITALS OVERSEAS--SKY PILOT LEADERSHIP--COÖPERATION OF VOLUNTEER WELFARE ORGANIZATIONS--NAVAL OFFENDERS HELPED TO FIND THEMSELVES. The death rate in the Navy by disease in 1917-18 was the lowest in the history of wars. Sickness, until the influenza epidemic, was less than in peace time. The loss of days by immoral disease decreased below the rate prevailing before the war. Preventive medicine, and war against disease and vice gave a record to the Navy Medical Corps which is a tribute alike to them and to the profession to which they belong. No branch of the military service was more forehanded and no officer saw more clearly the possible needs that war would entail or made ampler provision for them than the Surgeon General of the Navy, Admiral William C. Braisted, who in recognition of his distinguished service was given the privilege of retirement by a special act of Congress. He was later elected president of the American Medical Association. "The first battle of the war, that against disease, was won by the Medical Department of the Navy," reported the House Naval Affairs Committee. When I was pressing for large appropriations for the Medical Department of the Navy, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee asked me: "Mr. Secretary, do you really think there is proof of the absolute need for the whole of the large amount asked for by the Surgeon General?" "I do not," was my reply. "Then why are you here urging the appropriation of so large a sum?" he asked. "For the same reason," I replied, "that will cause you to appropriate it." He looked at me with some astonishment and I added: