Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/363

Rh has likewise been made of the hygiene and sanitary arrangements of railroad coaches and sleeping cars. The question of the dissemination of malaria by mosquitoes has been another productive field of research.

Closely connected with lines of work already outlined, is that of the leprosy investigation station on Molokai, Hawaii. Here, with unlimited material at their disposal, the director and his able assistants are making careful studies of the lepra bacillnsbacillus [sic], with the ultimate ambition of producing some means for the prevention and cure of the disease. A good example of the thorough and painstaking study of epidemic disease which characterizes the service work, is the exhaustive research made by Stiles of the distribution and results of hookworm infection in the south and especially in the rural sandy districts of Georgia and Florida. What Stiles did for the south, Ashford and King did for Porto Rico, and the result has a large economic, social and sanitary value in both places.

Relief stations of the service are divided into four classes. The first-class stations, numbering 23, consist of a marine hospital under the command of a commissioned officer. Among these is included the tuberculosis sanatorium at Fort Stanton, N. M. After the subjugation of the Apache Indians, the old army post at Fort Stanton, which for forty years had been a frontier protection for ranchmen, was no longer necessary, and in 1896 it was abandoned. For three years the post was deserted, except for the wild desert prowlers, and sagebrush and decay replaced the busy military life which had known it so long. In 1899 the property was acquired by the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, and again the martial spirit took possession, and once more the stars and stripes floated over the parade ground, fanned by the health-bearing breeze of the New Mexican plateau. But the foe to be conquered under the new regime was not the fierce red warrior whose 'merciless and invincible spirit had been supreme against the Spaniard and the American for three hundred years. The new foe, more deadly and terrible by far than the old, was the silent and merciless white death, the relentless destroyer of thousands, the plague of tuberculosis.

In situation Fort Stanton is admirably adapted to its present purpose. At an altitude of 6,200 feet, it has winter snows, and moderate heat in the summer. The reservation includes about forty-five square miles, and has resources which, when fully developed, will go far toward making the institution self-supporting. Natural water power is available. Two thousand cattle can be pastured on the range, which now supports almost that number of beef cattle, besides a large dairy herd. Poultry raising will soon supply an abundance of turkeys, chickens and eggs, and hog raising is another industry which promises much.

The daily number of patients averages about two hundred, under the care of seven medical officers. Sixty attendants find employment