Notes

Abstract

IN three Chadwick public lectures on the part of hygiene in the European war Dr. Woods Hutchinson gave some noteworthy facts in connection with the progress of military hygiene. The present world-struggle is probably one of the least deadly ever fought in proportion to the numbers engaged. Less than 5 per cent, of the wastage of former wars was due to wounds or deaths in battle; the other 95 per cent, was caused by disease. In the armies themselves the ratio was six to nine deaths by disease to one in battle or from wounds. In this war the ratio is sixteen deaths in battle to one from disease. Of the wounded who survive six hours 90 per cent, recover, of those who reach the field hospitals 95 per cent, recover, and of those who arrive at the base hospitals 98 per cent, get well. Barely 5 per cent, of the wounded are crippled or permanently disabled. There o is good reason to believe that the death-rate of this war does not exceed 5 per cent, per annum. The subjects of food and diseases of an army were also discussed. The superb health and vigour of our armies on the Western front are due largely to the rich and abundant supply of food. These armies had less sickness and fewer deaths from pneumonia and other diseases than they used to have in barracks in times of peace. The old plagues of army camps-cholera, Black Death, and spotted typhus-all lifted their heads in Italy, in Serbia, and in Russia, but all were promptly stamped out by modern sanitary science. The total number of cases of serious or lasting “shell-shock,” so called, and mental disturbance, during 1916 in the trenches in France, was 2600, fewer than one per 1000 of the armies in the field, and fewer than half of the ordinary insanity rate in men of military ages in times of peace. Modern nerves had stood the fearful strain of this war superbly.