report into shape for publication to the surviving member of the Board, Dr. Vaughan. 9[1]
As finally issued in 1904, the report is in a massive volume of text and tables, with a second volume of maps and charts, in the preparation of which Major Reed testified that C. J. Myers, longtime Chief Clerk of the Museum, had given "invaluable assistance for two years * * *." 10[2]
From the data in the two volumes of the report, 57 conclusions were drawn. The conclusions are a succinct and nearly complete compendium of information on the course, transmission, and prevention of typhoid fever in military camps or, for that matter, in civil life as well. As Major Kean wrote in his Seaman Prize Essay of 1906, the report of the board "threw a flood of light on the subject * * * and remains a permanent monument to the vast labors and scientific acumen of the members of that board— Reed, Vaughan, and Shakespeare." 11[3]
As to the cause of the disease, the report clears up several theories once widely held— the "obsolete theory," as it is termed— that the disease is caused by inhalation of gaseous emanations arising from certain soils, for one, and the more sophisticated theory that the disease is due to germs which spontaneously evolve, or "ripen," from microorganisms normally present in putrefying matter. Instead, the report firmly supports the specific origin of the disease by transmission, directly or indirectly, from an infected individual to a susceptible person. With the wide dissemination of typhoid at the turn of the century, the Board found that there were plenty of sources of infection, with 82 percent of the regiments studied developing typhoid within 3 weeks after reaching national encampments. Regardless of the section of the country from which the soldiers came, and even if they were encamped under perfect sanitary conditions, the chances were that one or more cases of typhoid would develop— and every case was a potential focus of infection. 12[4]
Indeed, because of the disposition to diagnose all but clear-cut cases as malaria or typhomalaria— a term which the report recommended to be discarded—typhoid fever was found to be much more prevalent than had been supposed. In the camps, "Army surgeons correctly diagnosed about half of the cases of typhoid fever," in the opinion of the Board after checking clinical symptoms and bacteriologic findings. But even so, the Board added, the Army
- ↑ 9 (1) Ibid., pp. xiii, xiv. (2) Vaughan, op. cit., pp. 391-394.
- ↑ 10 Lamb. Dr. D. S.: A History of the Army Medical Museum, 1862-1917, compiled from the Official Records. Mimeographed copy in historical records of AFIP, p. 119.
- ↑ 11 Kean, The Military Surgeon. 18 (1906), p. 13.
- ↑ 12 Reed et al., op. cit., pp. 659, 662, 663.
