he adoption of measures for
picking out soldiers who show symptoms of disease, which really comes
down to the fact that the medical officers must always be on the alert
and carry out the instructions of the director of medical services of
the army with despatch. In the British Army this is one of the most
important features in the control of epidemics. If a man is suspected
of having any communicable disease he is instantly placed under
quarantine until the diagnosis has been confirmed, after which he is
removed from the army area altogether as a possible focus of
infection. The British Army takes no chances, and its wonderful
record of freedom from contagious disease proves that it has been
absolutely sound in its technique.

This is practically the only way of eliminating diseases, such as
measles and scarlet fever which cannot be diagnosed by bacteriological
methods, but of course the procedure is employed in all other kinds of
epidemic disease as well.

Great Britain has been fortunate above all other nations in this
respect that she sent over at first a small army of regular troops,
perfectly equipped from the medical standpoint as well as in every
other way. Efforts had been made for years to remove typhoid carriers
from the regular army, and naturally no soldier was sent into the
field who was known to have typhoid, or to be a carrier of typhoid or
any other contagious disease germs. Furthermore, the soldiers had
practically all been vaccinated against smallpox and inoculated
against typhoid fever.

As division after division was sent out to the army in France, they
too were completely equipped with sanitary squads, casualty clearing
stations, field ambulances, water carts, and other necessary medical
equipment. Consequently as the army grew and expanded into a huge
force it was thoroughly equipped not only with the necessary apparatus
for caring for sick and wounded, but also with the experience acquired
by those already in the field. In this way the British Army differed
from all of our European Allies who had been compelled to mobilize
everything at once and found themselves woefully lacking in medical
equipment and personnel, so much so in fact that they had been in the
beginning unable to handle all epidemics successfully.

With a realization that the medical equipment of the British Army was
complete; that it had been sent into the field free of communicable
diseases; that it had been vaccinated and in