TRENCH FEVER

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2600, 23 October 1915, Page 3

TRENCH FEVER

Mr. H. F. Prevost Battersby, an English war correspondent, writing from the headquarters of -the British Army in Flanders with regard to tho health of the troops, states-.—"Nearly all great wars' produce their own disease, which generally, proves to be a variant of some other, locally modified. So far wo have been exceptionally fortunate in being able to' produce nothing more serious or more puzzling than trench fever. .This complaint produces a rise of temperature for an average of four days with a maximum that is seldom over 103 degrees. Headache, nausea, and great lassitude aro the ordinary accompaniments, and the general symptoms persist for about a week j indeed, in - more than one particular it resembles influenza, and if the resemblance should not prove deceptive we may be able to obtain a clue as to the origin of that mysterious ailment.

"It would seem almost impossiblo that no harm should result from the Banitary conditions along this front. During the greater part of a year thousands of men havo been killed and left unbailed, or with very inadequate burial, in tho narrow strip of ground between the opposing trenches. The rags that onco covered men can he seen hanging across the barbed - wire on which they fell last October. In ono section which we had captured from the Germans the greatest difficulties confronted our men. The trenches had to be abandoned owing to the numbers of bodies that had been built into the parapet, and elsewhere tho number of corpses superficially buried made almost impossible the digging of trenches. "In dug-outs, .in three different places,' one found the feet of Germans, protruding in their boots, -used with complete indifference as pegs on which to hang equipment, and. elsewhere a pair of rats, on tho friendliest of terms with the dug-out's occupants, had cleared out the contents of another boot to make a home for their family. "When lifo is lived under such conditions it is not epidemics that should surprise lis, but the extraordinary freedom from them which has marked the campaign, proof of the extent to which many maxims of hygiene may be disregarded, if only others are rigidly, observed. If we get off with nothing worse than trench fever wo shall bo amazingly fortunate."