The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

August, 1951The Health Bulletin(2) measures employed to protect himagainst specific diseases, and (3) theextensive research activities carried onin looking for better methods to controlthe diseases that might attack him. Althoughsome of these activities wereplanned and supervised by divisions ofthe Surgeon General's ofiBce not formallyincluded in the preventive medicineservice, they were a part of the totalprogram.General health measures included thephysical selection of healthy recruits;the provision of healthful clothing,housing, nutrition, and physical training;intensive training in hygiene; andsanitary control of the soldier's environment.The latter was handled cooperativelyby the division of sanitationand hygiene and the division of sanitaryengineering. It included providingfor safe food and water supplies, forthe sanitary disposal of wastes, and thecontrol of many insect vectors androdent reservoirs of disease. The importanceof sanitation was emphasized inthe training courses of all military personneland special intensive training inthe subject was provided for the MedicalService in the Medical Field ServiceSchool at Carlisle Barracks. The sanitaryprogram was operated efficiently,especially in fixed installations, but itwas difficult to maintain adequate sanitationvmder combat conditions and thefilth-borne diarrheas and dysenteriesand certain insect-borne diseases, especiallymalaria, caused much sickness incertain overseas locations. In the continentalUnited States this program wasrelatively successful. The extensive workdone by the Army in its camps andposts was supplemented in the surroundingcivilian areas by sanitary programsoperated through the U. S. PublicHealth Service by State health departments.This cooperative arrangement,which was initiated by the preventivemedicine service in 1940, was of greatimportance. It produced results whichhave had a profound influence on thepresent status of civilian and militaryhealth in the United States.The Conquest of Malaria in the UnitedStates.—A spectacular example is affordedby the present status of malaria.In 1940 the Army started an intensiveprogram for the elimination of mosquitoesin all military installations inthis country. At our request, the U. S.Public Health Service supplemented thisprogi'am with an extra-military mosquitocontrol campaign. The Army programcost about 17 million and that ofthe U. S. Public Health Service about 19million dollars. Considered as a whole,this was the most extensive mosquitocontrolprogram ever operated in anycountry in the history of the world. Itwas highly effective and although millionsof men were trained in camps locatedin the Deep South, relatively fewsoldiers contracted malaria in thiscountry. An important postwar outgrowthof this joint program was theestabhshment of the CommunicableDisease Center with headquarters inAtlanta, Georgia, which is continuingthe fight against malaria and otherdiseases and is now helping to mobilizeour eJitra-miiltary defenses for the presentemergency. It is reassuring to knowthat malaria, which once was a majoraffliction in the South, is now disappearing.Last year the State of Mississippioffered a bonus of $10.00 to anydoctor who could find a new case ofmalaria, and not one case was reported.This story of the conquest of malariain the United States is only one exampleof how the preventive medicine programof World War II exerted a powerfuleffect on the postwar health of thenation.New Insecticides.—Another outstandingcontribution made by om: departmentof sanitation and hygiene was theinitiation and coordination of an extensiveresearch program aimed at thedevelopment of more effective agentsand methods with which to improvemilitary hygiene and sanitation. One ofthe most helpful results of this workwas the development of new wartimeinsect repellents and insecticides whichhave been used so successfully for thecontrol of typhus, bubonic plague, dengue,malaria, and other important diseases.The story of the development ofthese new agents is a romantic tale of