Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1919 — Great War Has Taught Us How to Save More Lives Than It Has Cost [ARTICLE]

Great War Has Taught Us How to Save More Lives Than It Has Cost

By MAJOR G. A. STEWART.

Rockefeller Institute

The war has taught us how to save more lives than the war has cost. The countless improvements of practice, both in medieine and surgery, made in this war have advanced our science half a century in four years. In surgery the value and technique of “chlorination” —or the use of some combination of chlorine for the destruction of malignant germs which give rise to pus—have been learned as never before. There is no longer any good excuse for persistence of pus. The development of the “Carrel-Dakin” method of treating all manner of infected wounds by periodic irrigation with Dakin- fluid (a noncaustic hypochlorite) marked an extraordinary advance. And in this the method is as, important as the fluid. It is being taught to surgeons the -world over. Out of 45 patients in the War Demonstration hospital suffering from empyema we returned 35 to the front. Empyema is pus in the chest cavity. It often follows pneurhonia, and hitherto has been highly fataL There has been an unusual amount of empyema in New York this year of a very serious typq. But the dejith rate has been lessened by the modern treatment. * . Other wonderful advances have been made; for example, in X-ray work, in knowledge of the gas bacillus which causes a form of gangrene, in the serum treatment for prevention or cure of such diseases as typhoid fever, lockjaw, pneumonia, meningitis, etc. These lessons will save far more lives in the long run than the war has cost.