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Show SOLDIERS WORE MUSKS 01 SRIPS When tho soldiers in the last expeditions ex-peditions crossed to France, they wore gauze masks, according to tho Stars and Stripes, the army paper published , "overseas." That publication on Nov-1 ember 1 contained this article on the 1 subject: I Five thousand American soldiers last week wore chemically-soaked white masks all the while a 35,000 ton ocean j liner was speeding them to France over the North Atlantic. But when these soldiers, looking like ku-klux clansmen, disembarked at a base port there were no missing men when the rolls were called. Not a single soldier on that voyage had died of influenza or pneumonia. The medical medi-cal officers in eight days had found only 34 men suffering from these diseases. dis-eases. These facts stood out when 17 ships in two days landed 28,898 men at several sev-eral A. E. F. base ports and the records rec-ords showed' that for 28,898 safely landed, two men had died at sea of pneumonia. There had been only 149 cases or Influenza and pneumonia in the convoys. Epidemic on Wane At the same lime this became known, It was announced at the office of the Chief Surgeon, A. E. F., that from all signs the backbone of the epi-1 epi-1 demic that has been sweeping the world has been broken so far as American Amer-ican soldiers in France are concerned. Reports from the whole army showed that the number of cases had declined remarkably and that the severity of infections had been lessened. Influenza as an epidemic, army medical med-ical authorities, say, runs a course approximately ap-proximately two months, and the second sec-ond wave that has struck the A. E. F. is now almost at the end of Its two-month two-month course. They also say that the course of the disease has .proved that thej; are closely related to living and sleeping conditions, practically all cases being in areas away from the front whero troops had to be sheltered in largo groups. In proof of this, one army corps at the front in three months had only 20 cases of pneumonia. |