SEVERE WINTER FEARED

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 56, 4 September 1945, Page 7

SEVERE WINTER FEARED

DANGER OF HIGHER DISEASE

RATE NEW YORK, September 3. Brigadier-General George Rice, a surgeon of the American Bth Army, said that army doctors fear a severe winter in Japan, with strong danger of a higher disease rate as the result of cold and malnutrition, reports the Associated Press correspondent in Japan. Since this not only affects the Japanese civilian population but also several hundred thousand Americans -who will be stationed in the Tokio metropolitan area by this time, General Rice said he believed the United States would furnish relief to civilians if malnutrition became acute. Tuberculosis and dysentery have increased in recent months. Civilians still receive only one-fifth of the rations allowed the Japanese soldier. Agriculr tural production has been greatly reduced as a result of the ravages of war. The army medical administration has already asked for 70 to 80 field hospitals in Honshu for civilian patients. Another American Bth Army staff officer said that plans had been made for limited relief supplies for civilians. The plans were formulated on the ground that the Japanese seemed able to provide for their troops, and hence could take care of civilians. Army doctors discovered that the Japanese pumped water in from the mountains, but it contains only onetenth part of chlorine to 1,000,000 gallons, whereas the United States standard is one part of chlorine. The Japanese explained that chlorine made the water smell bad. They added that they did not have a large supply of chlorine. The army has asked the Japanese to bring the chlorine content up to American standards. Wherever the army finds the sanitation a menace to the health of the troops, it will take steps to improve the situation. ■