Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 1238

In later years Josephus Daniels was to claim that World War 1, was the first in American history in which there was great concern for both the health and morals of our soldiers.

It was the first American war in which the death rate from disease was lower than that from battle, due to the provision of trained medical personnel ( of the 200,000 officers, 42,000 were physicians ), compulsory vaccination, rigorous camp sanitation, and adequate hospital facilities.

To the middle of September 1918, there had been fewer than 10,000 deaths from disease in the new army.

This enviable record would have been maintained but for a great and unexpected disaster which struck the world with murderous stealth.

It was the influenza pandemic of 1918-19.

The malady was popularly known as the `` Spanish flu '' from the alleged locale of its origin.

The world-wide total of deaths from `` Spanish flu '' was around twenty million ; ;

in the United States 300,000 succumbed to it.

In mid-September 1918, the influenza-pneumonia pandemic swept through every American military camp ; ;

during the eight-week blitz attack 25,000 soldiers died from the disease and the death rate ( formerly 5 per year per 1,000 men ) increased almost fifty times to 4 per week per 1,000 men.

In spite of this catastrophe the final mortality figure from disease in the American Army during World War 1, was 15 per 1,000 per year, contrasted with 110 per 1,000 per year in the Mexican War, and 65 in the American Civil War.