Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/109

Rh a few medical cases, and of these scarcely a baker's dozen came under the heading of " Diseases of the digestive system." Therein lies one of the greatest secrets of the Japanese success. Napoleon never made a more truthful statement than when he said : "An army fights on its belly." The Japanese have that belly, and they take good care to keep it in fighting order, not by insulting it three times a day by cramming it with material totally unsuited to the soldier's necessities, thereby exciting irritations and disease, but by supplying it with a plain, palatable, easily prepared and easily digested ration that can be thoroughly metabolized and converted into the health and energy that make its owner the ideal fighting machine of the world today.

The organization of the medical de- partment of the Japanese army and navy is modeled after that of the Germans, with many added improvements. Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon the medical department of the army and navy for their splendid preparatory work in this war. The Japanese are the first to recognize the true value of an army medical corps. The medical officer is omnipresent. You will find him in countless places where in an American or British army he has no place. He is as much at the front as in the rear. He is with the first screen of scouts with his microscope and chemicals, testing and labeling wells so the army to follow shall drink no contaminated water. When the scouts reach a town he immediately institutes a thorough examination of its sanitary condition, and if contagion or infection is found he quarantines and places a guard around the dangerous district. Notices are posted, so the ap- proaching column is warned, and no soldiers are billeted where danger exists. Microscopic blood tests are made in all fever cases and bacteriological experts, fully equipped, form part of the staff of every divisional headquarters.

The medical officer is also found in camp, lecturing the men on sanitation and the hundred and one details of personal hygiene — how to cook, to eat, and when not to drink, to bathe, and even to the direction of the paring and cleansing of the finger nails to prevent danger from bacteria. Up to August 1, 9,682 cases had been received at the reserve hospital at Hiroshima, of whom 6,636 were wounded. Of the entire number up to that time only 34 had died.

It is the rule of the Japanese surgeons at the front to do little or no operating except in cases of extreme emergency or where hemorrhage threatens immediate death. All cases are treated by the ap- plication of the first aid dressing and then sent to the rear as quickly as pos- sible, thence by hospital boat or trans- port to the base hospitals in Japan. If the testimony of those conversant with the facts can be accepted, supple- mented from my own limited observa- tions, the loss from preventable diseases in the first six months of this terrible conflict will be but a fraction of 1 per cent. This, too, in a country notori- ously insanitary. Compare this with the fearful losses of the British from preventable diseases in South Africa, or, worse, with our own losses in the Spanish- American war — where, in a campaign the actual hostilities of which lasted six weeks, the mortality from bullets and wounds was 268, while that from disease reached the appalling num- ber of 3,862, or about 14 to 1, or 70 per cent — 1 per cent against 70 per cent. Naturally one asks, Were these results anticipated ? As an answer, the statement of a distinguished Japanese officer, when discussing with me the subject of Russia's overwhelming numbers, is pertinent. "Yes," he said, "we are prepared for that. Russia may be able to place 2,000,000 men in the field. We can furnish 500,000. You know in every war four men die of disease for every one who falls from