INNOCULATION OF MEN ASSISTS SEARCH FOR TRENCH FEVER CAUSE

Sixty United States soldiers, selected from among 500 volunteers, performed a notable service in the interest of military medical progress recently, when they submitted to inoculation with trench fever for experimental work in discovering means of controlling that disease. Human beings had to be used in these experiments, as it was found that the disease could not be transmitted to animals.

The experiments proved that trench fever is transmitted by the bites of body-lice and that the necessary step toward preventing it is to exterminate lice in the trenches. Trench fever placed ten percent of the British army on the sick list last year. The disease is not fatal, but incapacitates the victim for two or three months.

FOLLOW CO-OPERATIVE

SCHEME IN 36 STATES In a summary published in Public Health Reports June 28, it was stated that, up to the date of writing, 24 of the 48 states had completed arrangements to co-operate with the United States Public Health Service in the control of venereal disease, by having an officer of the Public Health Service assume charge of this work in the state, under the joint supervision of the state health department and the Public Health Service.

In addition to these 24 states, of which Ohio is one, it was stated that arrangements of a like nature were being completed as rapidly as possible with 12 other states whose health officials had expressed a desire for such co-operation.

Two

other states have had Army medical officers assigned to take charge of their venereal disease work.

Thirty-seven states, according to this summary of existing conditions, have regulations or laws requiring reporting of venereal diseases. The states in which the cooperative plan is in operation are, in general, dealing with venereal diseases along the lines of the plan outlined several months ago by the surgeons-general of the Army, the Navy and the Public Health Service (see the OHIO PUBLIC HEALTH JOURNAL for January, 1918).

CALIFORNIA REPORTS Nearly three times as many cases of gonococcus infection were reported in California during 1917 as during the preceding year. The total was 2,873 cases in 1917 against 1,091 cases during 1916. The increase in the number of cases of syphilis reported was not so marked, 1,790 cases being reported during 1917 against 1,538 cases reported during 1916. The reports of these cases of venereal disease were received from fortyfive out of the fifty-eight counties of California. The only counties. not reporting cases of these diseases were those of very low population in the Sierra Nevadas and other mountainous districts of the state. Nearly all of the large cities reported their cases of venereal disease regularly at the end of each week. It would appear that the old barriers of false modesty regarding the reporting of these cases are gradually breaking down, and the venereal diseases are now being placed on the same plane as any other reportable communicable disease. Bulletin California State Board of Health.

BILL FOR FEDERAL AID OF VENEREAL DISEASE WORK

To establish a government board of social hygiene and make permanent the present activities of the government for the control of venereal disease are objects of a bill introduced into Congress by Senator Chamberlain and Representative Kahn. The proposed board would consist of the surgeons-general of the Army, the Navy and the Public Health Service, and any other members whom these three might designate, with the secretaries of war, navy and treasury as ex officio members.

Provision for aiding the states by advisory measures and by financial assistance are included. The money grants would be paid to the states in amounts equal to state appropriations for venereal disease control, although for the first year the apportionment would be on the basis of state population, the "fiftyfifty" arrangement going into effect in 1919.

The sixteenth annual conference of state and territorial health officials with the United States Public Health Service, meeting in Washington in June, adopted a resolution endorsing this bill.