HEALTHY CAMPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16023, 15 September 1915, Page 4

HEALTHY CAMPS.

LECTURE AT OFFICERS' CLUB.

HOW EPIDEMICS START.

An interesting lecture on "Modern Military Sanitation " was delivered by Major J. Hardie Neil at the Auckland Garrison Officers' Club last night. Colonel J. P. Stevenson presided. The lecture ■was illustrated with lantern views.

The lecturer dealt with the general principles which were followed in laying down the sanitary regulations for use in camp and in the field. The three chief classes of disease, he said, were either intestinal, in which the disease was taken up in the food and drink; by inhalation, due to the inhaling of germs; and by injection, due to the bites of insects. In ordinary health, the fluids of the human body were able to deal with a moderate amount of the bacteria which were introduced by any of these three-methods. But privation, exposure and, above all, wet camps, tended to weaken the body's resistance and the fluids were unable to exercise their beneficial restraining influences. Hence, soft, untrained men, when subjected to privation, were more prone to illness than seasoned troops. One of the most prevalent complaints in a camp was diarrhoea. Sometimes this was due to too much saline in the drinking water and a change in diet. If, from these rare causes, it set in when the men had been only a few hours in camp, generally it was due to the presence of norse-fly bacteria in the intestinal tract, and the diarrhoea was nature's effort to expel them. Almost invariably the attack was duo to insanitary conditions, and often paved the way for an outbreak of _ typhoid or enteric. Flies, of which 90 per cent, were bred from horse manure, were the greatest source of danger. As showing how rapidly flies multiply, Major Neil said that the "whole progeny of a pair of flies, during one summer, if packed tightly together, would fill a quarter of a million cubic feet of space. ' Fifes, being unable to biss, transferred disease by carrying the bacilli on their legs and bodies, and again by infecting food with their deposits, which were many in a single day. Speaking of inhalation diseases,, the lecturer showed that an ordinary mouth contained many bacteria, and septic teeth allowed bacteria safe nests undisturbed by saliva, which would otherwise destroy them. Given a wet camp, and correspondingly diminished vitality, it only required a person carrying fever germs to start an epidemic which no medical man could stop. In a wet camp, if the horses were picketed close to the men an epidemic of influenza was almost sure to follow. Bell tents were referred to, to show how, in their limited —1190 cubic feet—the eight men allotted to them had only a quarter of the air space that the army deems advisable in _ barracks. Bacteria were spread 3ft in the ordinary process of speaking, hence clean months were of the utmost importance to ensure a healthy camp. No man should be allowed in a camp with a septic mouth. Men should be forced to clean their teeth and rinse their mouths as well as to dean thenrifles and polish their buttons.