El Paso, Tex.
Mar. 1, 1917
My Dear Mother: -
Between shots I'll try to write you a letter. We have several two-by-fours on the floor and are shooting in them to see how far they (the bullets) would penetrate. I guess the fellows in the next tent thought someone was trying to commit suicide when we fired the first shot.
Just five more days, and I will be nineteen years old. The last three years surely have gone fast for me. This is the first day of our confinement, owing to the quarantine they put on the military camp, on account of pneumonia.
Last night someone put salt in the sugar, & pepper in the coffee. You should have seen the fellows this morning when mess was served.
We rec. word today from the Base Hospital, that the fellow from our company, who was so serious with pneumonia, was very much improved.
We are still making more and more preparations for our return. We only draw 10 days forage, for our animals, at a time.
This climate is surely making me sleep. I sleep nearly every afternoon, and turn in anywhere from 7 to 11P.M.
I suppose it is about time for me to be changing the address of my letters, or won't you get away as soon as you expected from the south end.
Everything just the same here.
Feeling fine and dandy.
Love
Howard
The above clipping from the March 12, 1917 edition of the El Paso Times gives us a snapshot of just how important this pneumonia that Howard writes about really was the rest of the world (and to the future of modern medicine). The Base Hospital was the only place outside of New York that was administering a life-saving serum to those with the disease. You can find the full article here.
The 1917 Health News Bulletin from the New York State Department of Health states that there were 417 cases of pneumonia at the border that winter. Of those treated with the serum, the death rate was only 5.5%. Those that were not treated had a mortality rate of 39%. That meant that, in Howard's camp alone, that serum saved 20 lives.
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