ABSENCE OF ENTERIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15900, 24 April 1915, Page 6

ABSENCE OF ENTERIC.

The absence of enteric among British troops has been explicitly announced by Lord Kitchener, who authorised the official statement in the House of Commons that "' there had not been one case of enteric since the commencement of the campaign-" We have still to wait until medical science defeats the pneumonias, as it has defeated the enterics which even in the South African war slow more than did bullets, but the step already taken deprives war of half the terror it had of old however many new terrors may have been added. Before the days of scrums and antiseptics the soldier died less of battle than of the diseases of camps and the poisoning of wounds. To-day, tho soldiers' death rate is mainly clue to the activities of combat, for camp diseases have been largely eliminated and antiseptic treatment is a triumph of modern science. It is consoling to know that British soldiers who give their lives for their country die facing the enemy and no longer fall like flies in autumn because of the ignorances of an unscientific and unorganised age.