Epidemiology in the Army

Abstract

IN a recent article (Ann. Int. Med., 13, 2229; 1940) Lieut.-Colonel J. S. Simmons, of the Medical Corps of the United States Army, divides the hazards of military life into three groups according as they arise in peace-time service, during mobilization or in actual warfare. In peace-time the soldier's life is as safe as, if not safer than, the civilian's, as he has been carefully selected, housed in modern barracks, fed on a balanced diet of wholesome food and forced to take adequate exercise. He is trained in physical hygiene, and his health is under medical supervision. During mobilization, though efforts are made to continue existing medical facilities, the rapid accumulation of susceptible recruits from all parts of the country frequently results in epidemics. In actual warfare, the soldier is not only faced with the risk of injury and death from battle, but is also exposed to infection. Between April 1917 and December 1919 when the United States Army was engaged in that War the casualties from all quarters were 50,000 deaths due to battle and 58,000 deaths caused by disease. The principal diseases to which the soldier is exposed during mobilization and war are wound infections, the morbidity and mortality of which have undergone a striking decrease since the introduction of antiseptic surgery, gastro-intestinal infections due to contaminated food and drink, including enteric fever, dysentery and cholera, venereal infections, the admission rate for which in the United States Army was 87 per 1,000, respiratory infections, including influenza, pneumonia, scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, mumps and cerebrospinal fever, and insect-borne infections, such as malaria, yellow fever, typhus and plague.