WW1 Typhoid

[Sgt Stripes]

Was there any treatment for treating Typhoid in WW1 plus is there a record IE a breakdown, of how many Soldiers , sailors and airmen died from the the disease.   

[Moonraker]

Do you mean British or all nations?  A look at my notes on "military Wiltshire" suggest that soldiers were very strongly encouraged to be inoculated against i during training; this often lead to the men feeling groggy for a day or two and being given light duties. Googling "typhoid great war 1917" will lead to various websites, including scientific papers. This was the second website that I was offered. And it would seem that louse-borne typhus killed two to three million soldiers and civilians on the Eastern Front.

I didn't spot much about treatment, which appears to have been hit and miss. See here.

[Sgt Stripes]

Many Thanks for your Reply Moonraker and for the very interesting article. It's Mainly British casualties especially Naval casualties. 

[kenf48]

@Sgt Stripes As far as the British Army are concerned the information you seek is in the Official History Medical Diseases of the War Volume 1 Chapter 1 p.11 et seq

https://archive.org/details/medicalservicesd01macpuoft/page/12/mode/2up

which summarises that, " in six theatres of war with a mean ration strength of two million troops there were 20,149 cases of of typhoid and para typhoid fever with 1,191 deaths giving a total case mortality of 5.4%"  A whole chapter is devoted to the disease and its treatment and notes caution with the statistics due to analytical and reporting difficulties due to the war. It notes that on the outbreak of war typhoid fever was endemic in every theatre of war

I imagine as far as naval casualties were concerned the incidence was much lower due to the ability to enforce stricter hygiene standards and containment on ship, but I leave that to the naval experts.  There is  though no reason why the 5% mortality rate could not be applied as an average across the board with higher incidence as discussed in the OH in certain theatres of war.  It would be interesting to see what the mortality rate was among the general population in the UK perhaps the Wellcome Foundation has figures.

[Sgt Stripes]

Many thanks for your replies. This information helps me a lot.   

[seaJane]

This from my bibliography may be some help: I'm not sure which of the two Rolleston brothers was seconded to the Navy, whether it was HD or, as below, JD:

Vincent H, Muratet L. Typhoid fevers and paratyphoid fevers: (symptomatology, etiology and prophylaxis). Rolleston JD (ed., transl.). London: University of London Press, 1917. https://archive.org/details/typhoidfeverpara00vincuoft.

I've checked the archives of the Journal of the RN Medical Service via the BMJ Military Health archive, and there seems not to have been much of an issue with typhus and typhoid afloat; it was much more common ashore - the Journal of the RAMC has many more articles, while the RN seems to have been more concerned about the spread of cerebrospinal meningitis among young recruits in camps.

I have, however, found this in the Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service - @keithmroberts, it's new to my bibliography so I suspect it may be new to you too. Note that this too is ashore rather than afloat.

Merewether ERA. A report on the late medical conditions in Serbia, with special reference to the typhus fever epidemic. Journal of The Royal Naval Medical Service, vol. 2, no. 1 (Jan 1916), pp. 58-64. https://archive.org/details/JRNMSVOL2Images/page/n65/mode/2up?view=theater.

NB, by the way, that typhus and typhoid are different, typhus being louse-borne and typhoid being transmitted on food that has been in contact with faecal bacteria. I'm not certain, but I think I'm right in saying that without medical attention typhoid is the more likely to be fatal.

Regards,

seaJane

 

 

Edited 28 March by seaJane

[Sgt Stripes]

Many thanks for the information Sea Jane. Very interesting about Serbia as the catalyst for asking this question is that I am researching Ldg Seaman Z4002 Charles Edmund Smeeton who died of Typhoid Salonika August 1917.

[keithmroberts]

Thanks Jane, 

There is so much written about diseases in Salonika, I am sometimes  surprised that the doctors found time to treat patients