So far I have been dealing with disease from the point of view of the individual and I have said nothing of the duties of officers towards their men in this respect. A word on the subject may not be out of place.

When the new armies were formed in England at the outbreak of war it was summer time and the new troops were placed in tents in open fields. The lessons of camp life were difficult for many of these men to learn, and some of the experience that was obtained was bought dearly. It will occur to every soldier that the greatest care must be paid to the cleanliness of the lines. Men are often too lazy to carry their scraps to the proper garbage pails, and carelessly throw them around in the neighbourhood of the tents. In fine weather they can be easily seen and the culprits, when discovered, can be made to clean up all the lines. When the culprits cannot be discovered, whole companies have to be put to this fatigue work. In wet weather it is worse, for the particles of meat and bread get trodden into the ground and before long there arises a stench from them. Sometimes, too, rats and mice are encouraged by this careless method. We used to find that certain men who had an inherent objection to fresh air, would eat all their meals within the tents. This practice must be stopped at all costs. Bring the men into the open and let them stay there and they will be all the better for it. It is excusable for them to remain in the tents during rain but at no other time. The inspecting officer would frequently find pieces of bacon and butter and cheese trodden into the ground on which the men had to sleep.

The lines must be kept clean. Officers will be well advised to assign liberal fatigue work to the men who are guilty of messing up the lines, and littering them with particles of food, papers, cigarette and cigar ends, etc. The regular sanitary squad cannot be expected to do its work unless the soldiers themselves are made to co-operate. It is a good thing to encourage the spirit of rivalry between units, and men can often be jollied on into keeping their lines neat and tidy by pointing out to them lines that are better kept—and sometimes praising them when their lines are up to the required standard. We found that a good many of the men had quite an artistic instinct, and would use up the old bottles and stones from around the camp to execute the most beautiful designs representing the battalion colours or the flags of the allied nations.

We also met with considerable difficulty in getting men to thoroughly air the tents. The flaps of round tents should be rolled up just as early as is possible each morning. A good plan is to "strike" individual rows of tents occasionally and give the ground a thorough airing and disinfecting. We followed this plan with tents which contained notoriously lazy men who would not rise at the proper time and developed the habit of leaving the flaps of the tents down. They were awakened by the Orderly Corporal in the usual course of events and given ten minutes in which to appear outside their tents. Promptly at the expiration of this time a squad arrived on the scene and, undoing all their guy ropes, let the tents down very suddenly on their heads. It is very provoking to have a mass of canvas come about your ears in this way, and the slackers soon learned the only way to avoid it.

When an army has to live in tents, a certain amount of dampness is almost certainly inevitable. But if proper drains are dug around them, and every advantage taken of the sunlight, much can be done to avoid what frequently ends in rheumatism or pneumonia. It pays to construct good cinder roads in all the camp lines and to see to it that the approaches to the individual tents are prepared in the same way. When we were first dumped down in a field of clay in the Midlands of England and told to prepare it for the horse lines to accommodate the sixteen hundred horses that were due in a few days, we were faced with a colossal task. We were all turned into navvies, and long before we even had shelter for the horses they had arrived. It was a most tedious business to construct lines for them in December in England, and we had to cart many hundreds of tons of cinders and rock to make the place possible. For weeks we worked at it, and there were complaints from the men that they had not joined the army to be navvies. They had joined it to fight, so they said. But when the stables were finished and they could approach the lines over nice smooth dry roads they realised that their labour had not been in vain. There is usually a fitting return in health from all the labour invested in the preparation of a good camp.

Another place in which officers and non-commissioned officers must be on the alert for filth, is the cook house. This is true in winter as well as in summer time. It has been my experience that the laziest and dirtiest men volunteer for the task of cook. The reason is that they are able to get the choicest portions for themselves, be free from the bore of attending drills and parades, and get a little higher pay, besides what they can get from the soldiers on the side for little favours. In an army such as was formed in England at the beginning of the war it was impossible to get enough trained cooks for the work, and all sorts of men were run in for the job. Many of them were thoroughly lazy and incompetent. There was, of course, a rooted objection to calling in the aid of women—though few of us ever think of employing men to do our cooking in private life—and when we suggested it for the purpose of improving the grade of our food in the Officers' Mess, we were met with the reply that it had never been done. That was the reason for keeping out a good many reforms in Dear Old England. But by strategy on our part, and by the eventual demands of the stomachs concerned that some change be made, we were able to introduce a woman manager for the mess kitchen. She reformed everything, including the costs of the food. Our mess bills were considerably reduced, the food was better cooked, and we got a variety that had never seemed to occur to the late robbers that we had employed. When England began to feel the want of fighting men, it entered the brains of some of the Brass Hat officials that this was a sphere in which the women could well supplant the men—and woman came into her own again, at least in part. That was a job that women could do well, but it was a long time before we would agree to let them.

But whether men or women are in charge of this important department of an army, the duty will still devolve upon the officers to see that the cookhouses are kept clean and that the food is up to the proper standard. One case occurred in a camp near London where they were following the principle of allowing outside caterers to supply the food, in which the Orderly Officer of the day just managed to stop in time, the service to the men of meat that was diseased. The desire to make a little additional profit had blinded these unpatriotic people to the welfare of the troops, and they were punished with a fine and with the loss of their catering contract. That is mild punishment. Grafters of every kind, from those who put bad powder into shells or bad leather into boots, to those who risk an outbreak of sickness through supplying improper food, should all be treated the same way that certain other enemies of their country are treated—a Court-martial and a firing party. No condemnation is too severe for them. Officers will not always find it an easy task to detect these thieves, but they must be very much on their job for this purpose.

Then again good food sometimes is allowed to become bad food through the careless handling by the cooks and their assistants. Covers are left off dishes that contain meat, butter, cheese, etc., and they are ruined by dust or flies. Contaminated food is allowed to remain in close proximity to the food that is to be offered to the troops; cooks either use unclean utensils themselves or allow the orderlies from the various units to return dirty utensils to them; or they handle the refuse and then the food without ever a thought to washing their hands. One very knowing old rascal of a cook we had used to have his place in excellent condition at eleven in the morning when the Orderly Officer used to make his rounds, and one day when I came upon him suddenly it was to find that he was using one of the bread bags as a receptacle for his change of clothes—a filthy collection of shirts, socks, etc. He was fired, and cursed me for many a day as he carried his great weight of avoirdupois round the training field with a rifle over his shoulder like any other infantryman.

With regard to water, while the regular line officers must also keep an eye to its general purity, it is generally left to the care of the medical staff to test it from time to time to make certain of its fitness for human use. We experienced a good deal of trouble in making the men keep their wash lines clean and in making them refrain from throwing soapy, greasy water on the ground. It is the easiest method—for them—but the costliest in the long run, and they must be made to throw it into the proper drains.

Then, too, no camp will be complete without a thorough system of garbage disposal. The refuse should be collected into tins that can be closed to keep away the rats, etc., and then taken at certain specified times to the incinerator. The latter can easily be built under any circumstances and there can be no reason for a camp not being well supplied in this matter.

Latrines, also, must be thoroughly inspected by the officers of every unit. They should be established at some distance from the tent lines, and as far removed as possible from the kitchen. Sand and lime should be liberally supplied. The tasks of attending the latrines will normally fall to the sanitary squad who can be assisted by those who are convicted of the crime of failing to keep their lines clean. It is wonderful what a wholesome effect on a lazy man has the imposition of three days latrine duty! In the trenches this was one of the few punishments at our disposal for the slackers, for they welcomed any punishment that would send them away out of the firing line.

The same principles that have been laid down for tent life will apply more or less to life in billets. When the winter came all the troops in England and Scotland were moved into billets in towns where they could be accommodated. These were usually manufacturing towns that had numerous small homes that could each accommodate a soldier or two. From the point of view of training this is a system far from satisfactory for the men so easily get out of control. But it is the best system that we had at the time. Later on, extensive villages of huts were constructed, and the training proceeded normally.

Sometimes groups of men were assembled in large vacant houses. There was no furniture in them and the troops had to sleep on the floor. Cooking facilities were inadequate, but worst of all were the toilet facilities. These houses had been constructed to serve as the homes for average families of five to ten, and when fifty or sixty men were turned into them the result is imaginable. The same problems will probably be presented if ever American soldiers are housed in this way, and those who happen to be officers will have to exercise the greatest vigilance.

Then again we found that there are some men who have no idea of the risk they run in leaving food lying about a house or hidden away. After a certain group had moved away from Bedford, England, it was my business to go round the houses they had occupied to see if they were fit for occupation by the incoming troops. I found to my horror in one of the houses that some of the men, instead of taking surplus meat out to the garbage cans, had put it under a board in the floor! It had been there a few days when I found it, and examination of the other rooms disclosed the fact that all sorts of things from meat and bread and tins to old clothes had been hidden in similar places by these lazy fellows.

My reader will soon realise that the officer of to-day has to keep his eyes constantly open to preserve the best conditions for the training of his men. And while I am on this point I would just add this word. Not only must the officers see to it that the food and water are good and the camp kept clean, but he must also have the men's health constantly in mind when he is planning their schedule of training. Moderation is the word. It is possible to be too enthusiastic and do the men more harm than good with hasty training. Exercises should be graduated. It must be remembered that many of the men who will constitute civilian armies are not used to out-of-door life and their training must be gentle. It is not fair for an officer to expect his men to be able to march twelve or twenty miles on a hike while he rides comfortably with them on a horse! It is a good thing for him to share the fatigue of his men that he may be the better able to direct their training. I have found that a good many of these hikes were planned by the higher officers who never walked and never understood when men began to fall out from fatigue. Rests during marching should be fairly frequent and the men should be taught the advantages to be gained by loosening their packs and throwing themselves down flat on the ground to relax all their muscles. Singing and whistling should be encouraged on the march, for there is nothing like it to make a long road seem short, but smoking should be reserved for the rest periods.

The principle of "plenty of rests" should also be followed during physical exercises and a man should never be asked to hold his arm long in any uncomfortable position. A thoughtful officer is soon rewarded by the increased efficiency of his men. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"—will bring big returns in the army.