ENTOMOLOGY

44 SANITARY ENTOMOLOGYthat disease and the insect conditions of that focus. The original healthconditions on the site may have a distinct bearing on later events.Often the first arrivals at the camp site are contractors with multitudesof laborers and animals collected from everywhere, and from everystratum of society. There are few hygienic arrangements for these men.In fact, the contractors are aiming to obtain as large profits as possible,and therefore hold down the expenses for sanitary waste disposal. Someamong these laborers are almost certain to bring lice, bedbugs, fleas, andpossibly also scabies mites, on their bodies and clothes. Thtown togetherindiscriminately in hastily cOQstructed barracks, there is soon a generaldistribution of vermin. Their animals are quite likely to be infected withscabies mites and possibly other mites, and with bots and ticks. Theundisciplined assembling of many animals and carelessness about manuredisposal offers great attractiveness to all flies and insects attracted byanimals. It is probable that many dogs accompany the laborers andcontribute their quota of fleas. It is almost impossible with crude, uneducatedlaboring men to get them to maintain sanitary conditions. Indiscriminatedefecation, the scattering of garbage, the accumulation ofmanure, personal uncleanliness, all contribute to make contractor camps. t Jsamtary sore spo s.Sooner or later the sanitarians arrive on the spot, very likely witha squad or company of raw untrained labor troops, and the clean-upbegins. We can expect a constant lack of coordination between themilitary and the civilian. As for example, at one camp the sanitaryofficers had constructed drainage ditches to carry off surplus standingwater, but the laborers persisted in throwing scraps of wood, underbrushand waste into the ditches so that they were of no avail, or rather so thatthey formed traps for ~ater pools.During the transition period when the camp is part civilian and partmilitary there will be two very different types of conditions existingside by side, one good, one bad. Of course fhe army sanitarians havesupervision over these civilian camps, but they find difficulty in enforcingsanitation.When a camp is placed like Camp Humphreys, Virginia, on a tongueof land between two shallow bays of water that are known to fill up withvegetation, and which furnish breeding places for millions of mosquitoe;,and with typical swamp lands at the heads of these bays, we may readilysee that the task of the sanitary officer is not an easy one. These baysare moreover at tidal level and the daily fluctuations of the water addcomplications to the drainage problem. Each individual camp, whereverlocated, will present its own type of problems, and necessitates an earlyand thorough entomological survey.The tremendous speed of construction· and the rapid arrivals of fresh!