Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 311, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1918 — Typhoid Wiped Out in France [ARTICLE]

Typhoid Wiped Out in France

Professor Vincent Conquers the ..... Most Dangerous Enemy of the Republic. HELPS INCREASE MAN POWER In Former Wars More Soldiers Perished From This Disease Than by Bullets —Fever Has Vanished From Belfort District. of France’s most dangerous enemies has now been vanquished—typhoid fever, and the victor is Professor Vincent, an officer of one of the French medical schools. The war has shown that the most deadly of fevers is at the mercy of science. Tyhofd fever was always a great enemy of armies in the field. It lias been established that in wars previous to the present one more men (lied of typhoid than by bullets and shells. Typhoid Epidemic Started. At the'*sjprt of the present struggle a typhoid epidAnlc started in October, 1914, and increased through the winter of J 914-1915. , Professor Wincent set out to stop the Epidemic by using a vaccine which he had discovered four or five years previously. Already, from 1911 to 1914, most of the French soldiers under arms had been vaccinated. But the mobilization men arrived in different depots in hundreds of thousands. Doctor Landouzy. head of the medical service In the Belfort district, had 100,000 men vaccinated. Three months later typhoid fever had entirely disappeared from his district, and It was proyed that only in districts where men had not been vaccinated was typhoid to be feared. Number of Deaths Smaller. At present vaccination is obligatory everywhere, and. thanks to this, the number of typhoid cases dropped from seven in January, 1915; to 0.025 In March, 1917.

The number of deaths through typhoid had also dropped to such an extent that now they have to be reckoned on an average of 10,000 men. So far, for the present year, only 0.04 deaths In 100,000 have been recorded. “Tt is permissible to affirm,” srys Professor Vincent, “that preventive vaccination, for which the antityphus laboratory of the Val de Grace furnished the army zones with 5,513,073 doses of vaccine, has saved a considerable number of men for the country. “If'the morbidity and mortality experienced from November, 1914, to January, 1915, had been maintained and on the hypothesis that between 4,000.000 and 5,000,000 men had been sent to the front during that period, the number of cases would have been more than a million and the number of deaths 145,000.”