Manual of military hygiene for the military services of the United States / by Valery Havard.

  • Havard, Valery, 1846-1927.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Manual of military hygiene for the military services of the United States / by Valery Havard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of Canada by Montjjoinery and Arnold in 1775 was nnsnc- cessfnl because of tlie enormous percentage of losses from small-j)ox and dysentery. Napoleon’s plan to found a colo- nial emj)ire in what is now the Southern Cnited States failed because 15,()()() men of his fine army, sent out for that i)urpose in 1802, perished in Santo Domingo of yellow fever and other troj)ical diseases. The British in the (Vimea lost twenty-five times more men from disease than from wounds. Brief as was the war with Spain, deaths from sickness in our army were over seven times more numerous than were those from injury. Even in the Balkan War, recently terminated, the Bulgarian campaign (carried on at first with such fiery \ igor and astonishing success) broke down largely because of epi- demic disease. The occurrence in one day of about 30,()()() cases of a choleraic dysentery was-a more \ ital factor than was the Turkish resistance in the check of the Bulgarian Army at Chatalja and its failure to capture Constantinople. Results of Prophylaxis.—Cp to recent years a high per- centage of disease and death during war time has been ac- cepted as unavoidable, and but little effort made to i)revent the one or to lessen the other, but the great increase in knowledge of the causes of disease has given us weai)ons with which to fight these, and the a])plicati()n of sanitary principles has resulted in a marked diminution in many affections now shown to be preventable. The annual death-rat(' for that half of the Cnited States which keeps rcliabh' statistics has decreased nearly 20 jx-r cent, in tlu' last generation. TIk' average length of life at present is about forty-five years, and it is estimated that methods of disease prevention (so-