During the winter of 1917-1918, 1,311 cases of pneumonia were treated at the Base Hospital, Camp Wheeler, Ga., with 275 deaths, constituting the largest mortality of any single disease in the camp, indeed, more than 80 per cent. of all the deaths that occurred. Control of the pneumococcus infections would obviously have saved many lives to the service and avoided as well the loss of a large number of men, who were later discharged on account of physical disability, the result of complications and sequels of pneumonia.
The unenviable eminence of this camp in the matter of pneumonia is undoubtedly due to a number of coinciding predisposing factors. Perhaps most important is the character of the men here in training during the winter under discussion. Vaughan and Palmer, in the course of their exhaustive investigation of the communicable diseases occurring in the army camps in this country, have shown that