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Norfolk Regiment Casualty and Sickness Book - what might 'ah Arret' mean? And how debilitating was Trench Fever?


JDB

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Hi all, 

 

I have a soldier (3/7890)  with 1st battalion Norfolk Regiment KIA 5/8/15 (confirmed by MIC & Rolls) who has an entry in the Norfolk Regiment Casualty and Sickness Book that says:

 

7890 Cpl 1st Bn Hipperson, G

Not Yet Diagnosed Fever Field Ambulance 15 (France/Belgium) 3.5.15

Killed in Action ah Arret 9.8.1915

 

I have two questions please: 

 

I haven't seen the original book and I've queried whether 'ah' should be 'at' in case its a simple typo but either way, I'm puzzled by the 'Arret 9.8.15' bit. 

One suggestion is a cardiac arrest but then the date would be wrong as he was already dead by the 9th - unless this was the date on which 'Arret' was entered in the book.  Has anyone else seen this sort of reference anywhere? 

 

Also, I realise this is just a straws in the wind question but if the 'Not Yet Diagnosed Fever' was Trench Fever, does anyone know the average sort of time he would have been out of action.  Whatever the diagnosis, the timing is pretty crucial as he was either at Hill 60 in early May 1915 or he wasn't....

 

Kind regards

Jane

 

 

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Hi Jane

 

The most likely of " not yet diagnosed" fever is Trench Fever. This was a debilitating illness caused by the excreta of Lice entering abraded skin. Lice were a big problem and infestations were very common in men who were unable to wash or change clothing for weeks. it was also highly transmittable person to person in the cramped conditions of trench life. Infections usually took 14/30 days to appear, with the individual complaining of fever, headache, and specifically pain behind the eyes, conjunctivitis (inflamation of the inside of the eye lids) and back and leg pain.

 

Treatment was with anti parasitic paste comprising Naptha (Mothballs) creosote and iodene, coated on the uniform seams   and symptom control, the usual treatment would have been for 28 days, so the individual is likely to be away for at least one month possibly more. There was a plan to ensure every man had a bath once a fortnight to keep him clean and reduce infestation

 

Interestingly the Commonwealth War Graves site lists another  Pte William Robert Hipperson  3/7594 from the 1st Btn Norfolk Regt who died 05/05/15  Age 19 parents being James John Hipperson and Emmeline and an address in Norwich. perhaps they were brothers

 

The "ah Arret" would appear to be a place, the literal translation being "at stop", but that is schoolboy french will leave others with far greater knowledge to proffer a view

Edited by adrian 1008
schoolboy error in dates sorry !
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55 minutes ago, adrian 1008 said:

Treatment was with antibiotics and symptom control, the usual dose would have been for 28 days, so the individual is likely to be away for at least one month possibly more.

I'm not a medic [and may likely be easily be shown up as such! ;-/], but weren't antibiotics discovered after the war?

E.g. Penicillin by Alexander Fleming in the late 1920s

Trench Fever probably had you hors de combat for quite a while though.

:-) M

Edited by Matlock1418
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The battalion War Diary is pretty sketchy for the period, just saying they were in trenches at Fricourt near Albert (image courtesy of Ancestry):537774606_Screenshot2021-02-24at14_09_22.png.0ce53ce8a0744d320cfad28ce00356ec.png

 

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Jane I think that ‘ah Arret’ is just a mis-transcription of: at Albert, or at Arret (if the latter is a place).

Edited by FROGSMILE
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They were making and using serum. Don't want to show myself up by guessing if that's the same as antibiotic.

 

Ah Arret. Surely a place he was KIA.  At somewhere, anglicised version of a place?

 

Had hoped that soldiers' effects might tie down a location but I can't find him listed.

 

Cardiac Arrest hardly fits with KIA.

TEW

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31 minutes ago, Matlock1418 said:

I'm not a medic [and may likely be easily be shown up as such! ;-/], but weren't antibiotics discovered after the war?

E.g. Penicillin by Alexander Fleming in the late 1920s

Trench Fever probably had you hors de combat for quite a while though.

:-) M

Arsphenomine came out before WW1, but I've no idea if it was used.

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There was a serum developed which was made of lice excreta, alcohol and other substances that were heated, however it was not thought to be effective so didnt go into any form of production. Quinine was also tried, as it had been succesful in the management of malaria, but did not have any impact on Trench Fever. The most succesful methods were destroying the parasite at source. I believe there were  few horse pulled steam sanitizers that were used  but not enough, There seems to be a bit of experimentation in the field with various Drs trying different methods in an unregulated manner . The Use of baths every 2 weeks was considered impractical by many commanders, but ultimately was the most effective method.

 

Lice didnt really spread to the UK, so troops returning were "de loused" before traveling across the channel

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 Frogsmile, Adrian, Matlock and Tew , thanks all - yes its a puzzler isn't it and the heart attack during battle suggestion doesn't fit the scenario at all, as both the battalion and brigade diaries mention how how quiet it was - relatively speaking of course...

I haven't found an Arret as a location but an abhoration of 'at Albert' would make sense - the book sometimes says where the soldier was buried which is useful if subsequently lost as in this case - he's on the Thiepval memorial but I'm thinking if he was killed during a quiet spell, he presumably had a grave at some point. 

 

As for the Trench Fever - of course I don't know what infection he was ultimately diagnosed with but it seems there were increasing cases from that summer on and it took a while for them to give it a name so maybe - One of the articles I read said they tried treating it with various medicines used for Malaria and Syphilis first and it was some time before they found something that worked. Not sure how that fits in with antibiotics as such - think they were later weren't the. I'm grateful to know the rough sort of length of  recuperation, that's helpful. 

 One other thing that occurred to me is the effects of gas - the diary for the 15th Field Hospital was overrun with gas cases from Hill 60 on May 3rd - not sure if that would correlate with symptoms for  undiagnosed fever - probably not. 

Anyway, some interesting contributions to think of - thank you all as always. 

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Adrian,

Meant to say, the William Robert Hipperon soldier isn't a brother but thanks for pointing him out. He may well be a cousin - I've had a look at him before - he enlisted in Norwich and my chap was Great Yarmouth but yes, very likely related. My soldier had a brother - James Hipperson - who was killed in 1918 ASC. 

Cheers

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2 hours ago, JDB said:

 

 I realise this is just a straws in the wind question but if the 'Not Yet Diagnosed Fever' was Trench Fever, does anyone know the average sort of time he would have been out of action.  Whatever the diagnosis, the timing is pretty crucial as he was either at Hill 60 in early May 1915 or he wasn't....

 

Each soldier affected by trench fever was typically unfit for duty for 60–70 days.

See - The impact of trench fever during World War 1

 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(16)30003-2/fulltext

 

Attempts at treatment during World War 1

In 1916, Hunt and McNee reported that quinine, salvarsan (arsphenamine), antimony, mercury ointment, eusol, and convalescent serum were all ineffective treatments for trench fever. Colloidal silver had its proponents and sceptics. Sundell and Nankivell noted no improvement with salicylate, bromides, butyl chloral, urotropine (methenamine), or tincture of gelsemium, but aspirin and phenacetin or topical menthol provided pain relief. Hurst recommended magnesium sulfate compresses for the pain. Byam reported that a lumbar puncture relieved the leg pain, even though the cerebrospinal fluid was non-inflammatory. The TFIC reported that acriflavine and trypan red (both used to treat trypanosomiasis), galyl and ortho-aminothiobenzene (antisyphilitic drugs), sulphur, iodine, manganese, rhodium, methylene blue (antimalarial drug), and killed intravenous Salmonella spp afforded no benefit. Hughes claimed that a concoction of quinine, salicylate, iron, arsenic, and strychnine was curative and that liniment of turpentine soothed the shin pain. However, neither of these interventions was corroborated nor supported by trial data.

 

JP

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In a Field Ambulance in Ypres by William Boyd he describes multiple cases of measles, German Measles (bet that went down well), mumps, scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhoid fever and cerebrospinal meningitis in April 1915 so it may not have been Trench Fever but they all seem to have a clear diagnoses and presumably would have been diagnoses in most cases by the regimental doctor before he sent a soldier off to the field ambulance, - whereas Trench Fever didn't at this time.  Just mulling it over...

 

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3 hours ago, JDB said:

the Norfolk Regiment Casualty and Sickness Book that says:

How does one get to see this ?

charlie

 

edit- I've googled and seen it is a Norfolks Museum project. very interesting.

Edited by charlie962
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5 minutes ago, ss002d6252 said:

The effects record says

image.png

 

5-8-15 ??? In action

 

Craig

 

Whats the rest of the contemporary handwriting like on that page - could it be a diabolical way of writing "Gassed", or alternatively some abbreviation for Assumed, as in the date was assumed.

 

Cheers,

Peter

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Just now, PRC said:

 

Whats the rest of the contemporary handwriting like on that page - could it be a diabolical way of writing "Gassed", or alternatively some abbreviation for Assumed, as in the date was assumed.

 

Cheers,

Peter

The entries typically have the date, place of death and then reason.

 

A man of the same battalion killed the day before
image.png

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/60506/images/42511_6117463_0022-00108?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&queryId=a20b24509d65691920c5223782364300&usePUB=true&_phsrc=YaU265&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=632798

 

Craig

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Its an odd one - I only recently came across a brief reference to it last week and emailed the Regimental Museum in Shirehall, Norwich, not sure whether they were running any sort of online service or not at the moment.

I had an email back from the Curator the following day. It has not been digitized but it is well indexed and so for brief requests such as I had submitted, she was happy to supply a transcript. So I've not seen the original - I believe the Norfolks are the only regiment to have one of these books but it contains about 15,000 entries from mainly the first and second battalions so I imagine is very useful. I believe they are looking to have it digitized by means of crowdsharing

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Apparently Arret (i.e. without any accent) has the following meaning:

 

Definition of arret

: a judgment, decision, or decree of a court or sovereign

 

(i.e. a judicial decision, which seems significant in the context we’re examining here).

 

Could this be a case of a Lingua Franca phrase being convenient for an annotated entry?

Edited by FROGSMILE
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Ooo....now that is very interesting - definitely a likely looking Arret isnt it.... I haven't see the original but I might email that off to the curator in Norwich and see what she thinks. Thank you for that.  If it is 'assumed', it would explain the later date of the 9th August when everywhere else its 5th and may be an alternative explanation for him being on Thiepval memorial - I assumed his grave had been destroyed in later fighting but maybe he never had one.  Presumably, if he never returned from an engagement/action he would have first been posted missing - was there a fixed time period when such an assumption about date of death was recorded?  Four days doesn't sound long enough but I guess it depends on the circumstances prevailing at that time and witness statements that may have come in a few days later.... 

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Thanks for all the suggestions with everything - lots of food for thought there on both subjects.  I really appreciate your input. I think I'd like to see the original book for myself to make some proper comparisons - in the meantime I'll add it to the post-lockdown pile!

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1 hour ago, JDB said:

 Presumably, if he never returned from an engagement/action he would have first been posted missing - was there a fixed time period when such an assumption about date of death was recorded?  Four days doesn't sound long enough but I guess it depends on the circumstances prevailing at that time and witness statements that may have come in a few days later.... 

If death was presumed it would say 'presumed' or 'on or since' in the effects records.

 

If he was missing presumed dead then it was typically a 6-month waiting period before confirmation was made.


Craig

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Ahh - ok - thanks - got the wrong end of the stick then.

Still, the Arret / Killed / Dead is a clear correlation - just don't know where the 9th Aug comes from. 

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Just now, JDB said:

Ahh - ok - thanks - got the wrong end of the stick then.

Still, the Arret / Killed / Dead is a clear correlation - just don't know where the 9th Aug comes from. 

The 9th may just be a date of a report or the date the entry was made - plenty of scope in records for clerical issues. We may never know.


Usually where a man was missing it would give either the 'on or since…' or a range of dates in the effects.

 

Craig

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