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Show Earlier Diagnosis Of Foreign Disease Now Made Possible Fear That Returned Vets Will Harbor Latent Ills Is Somewhat Dispelled Fears that strange diseases, which will be brought home to this country coun-try by returning servicemen, may escape early detection, have been somewhat eased by the work of one industrial medical director. Dr. E. H. Carleton, head of the medical medi-cal department of Inland Steel company, com-pany, has devised a practical outline out-line of tropical, Asiatic, and other foreign diseases for the use of his own staff and any other interested physicians, for the anticipation and detection of ailments which have-heretofore have-heretofore been uncommon in American practice. "We believe," he said, "that our 'list of diseases' will play a threefold three-fold role in the future protect returned re-turned servicemen from inaccurate diagnosis of diseases or their after effects that may not appear for months or even years after they come back to this country; protect fellow workers from infection in our company's plants; and protect their neighbors, families, friends and the general public from contracting con-tracting the infections." Service History Needed. The success of Dr. Carleton's index in-dex depends largely upon full knowledge of intimate details of the patient's life in service all the places where he was stationed, visited, vis-ited, or passed through; sicknesses he suffered; symptoms felt before or after his discharge from service. Each division of the index lists the diseases endemic to that area. The result is an alphabetical geographical geographi-cal guide to disease. Many infections in-fections have been of such local character until now that they are known to the average American doctor doc-tor only as names in medical books. Disease which are world-wide in character or that can be easily diagnosed diag-nosed by American doctors are ignored ig-nored in the index. Typical of the 329 geographical listings in Dr. Carleton's guide are: "Afghanistan: Epidemic typhus fever." "Africa, East: Tertian malaria, rat bite fever." "Africa, Spanish West: Dengue fever." fe-ver." "Formosa: All venereal diseases, schistosomiasis, Weil's disease, fungus fun-gus infections, trachoma (widespread), (wide-spread), malaria, dengue fever, filariasis, tsutsugamashi fever, relapsing re-lapsing fever." "United States, Southeastern: Filariasis Fil-ariasis (elephantiasis)." "United States, Midwest: Amebic dysentery." "India, Southern: Leishmaniasis, dengue fever." "Yugoslavia: Epidemic typhus fe ver." In another section of the guide, the little-known diseases are listed alphabetically and described succinctly suc-cinctly as to cause of infection, nature na-ture of the infecting organism, symptoms and sequelae or after effects. ef-fects. Makes Diagnosis Easier. , Thus, should a veteran suddenly become ill many months later with symptoms not readily recognized by the doctor, the latter need only to refer to the man's medical record rec-ord and to the index for a possible clue to the nature of the ailment. |