THE SANITARY RESULTS OF OUR CONQUESTS AND ANNEXATIONS.

Abstract

The addition of tropical territories and population to our national dominion has certain medical and sanitary bearings that are well worthy of careful consideration. This statement does not necessarily imply that such additions involve any elements of national peril in a medical point of view, though that has been urged as a fact by those opposed to such territorial expansion, but simply that it enlarges the range of our national hygienic supervision and brings some sanitary problems more nearly home to us than was formerly the case. Instead of involving new dangers the extension of our rule ought to eradicate existing ones to a large extent and favorably modify others where their complete avoidance is impossible. Warm countries are commonly regarded as unhealthy, and they certainly have some special disadvantages in a hygienic point of view, but it is a fact that ordinary sanitary precautions are hardly anywhere so habitually