Yellow Fever on Gallipoli

[Matthew King]

My Granddad and some of his friends from, the 6th Essex Regiment, were evacuated from Gallipoli with Yellow Fever. I have only found one mention of the outbreak on the internet and it wasn't very detailed at all. Also in the few books I have looked through there was no specific mention of it. I was wondering if any one had any details of the outbreak of could recommend some books of sources that might have more information. Mainly I’m interested to know how many soldiers where effected and how many casualties there were due to it.

Thanks for any help

Matthew King

[Sue Light]

Matthew

What an interesting question. ‘Yellow fever’ as we know it today, is a viral illness confined to tropical areas of Africa, and South America, and although it was not unheard of in Europe, it was extremely rare [perhaps unknown], after 1900. It seems very likely that the ‘yellow fever’ referred to in your research was, in fact, some form of infectious hepatitis or ‘epidemic jaundice’, which was prevalent both on the Western Front, and also in other theatres, including Gallipoli, and in all its forms turns the skin yellow. There were several different forms, – on the Western Front the causative organism was a spirochaete, frequently Leptospira ictero-haemorrahagica, but in Gallipoli I don’t think the causative organism was positively identified [but I will have to check that]. The first outbreak of this type of jaundice among British troops occurred in Egypt in July 1915, and in Gallipoli in mid-August of that year, and was at its height in late October – by the end of 1915 it was, in the main, over. This quote from ‘Medical Diseases of War’ by Sir Arthur Hurst:

“Official statistics give no adequate idea of the prevalence of the disease, as large numbers of men continued at duty throughout their illness, especially in November and December. Several regimental medical officers told me that at times as many as one-tenth of their men actually in the trenches were jaundiced. In one battalion there were a hundred cases during October, but only thirty-six were regarded as of sufficient severity to be sent into a field ambulance.”

The fact that there is so little written about this ‘yellow fever’ adds more weight to the argument that this was indeed hepatitis and not today’s ‘Yellow Fever’ – the former is fairly mild and does not carry a great mortality rate – if it had been the latter, so many would have died that it would have received rather more publicity.

The chapter in the book mentioned above is extensive in its description of the disease and its outcomes. If you would like more, let me know, and I will copy or scan it and send it to you.

Regards - Sue

[Matthew King]

Thanks Sue

Actually my Grandfather say he had "Yellow Landers", I read on one website this was another name for Yellow Fever, but from your description of the jaundice and my Grandfather's description I do believe that is what he had.

Actually looking back on the acticile I found that mentions Gallipoli and Yellow Fever was a letter a Doctor had writen from the Yellow Fever Commision where his is decideing whether there is an outbreak of yellow fever. Gallipoli is mentioned as an expample where there was a jaundice outbreak

"Epidemic jaundice, febrile jaundice, infectious jaun-

dice appears to have been more prevalent in recent years than

formerly. Grissinger's bilious typhoid is disenbed [described] in recent mo-

nographs on the diseases of Egypt. There has been an extensive

epidemic in the Italian army of accupation in Tripoli; <strong>another

epidemic in the army fighting in the Gallipoli peninsula.</strong> It

appears to have been demonstrated that this outbreak was due to

a paratyphoid infection. More recently an epidemic in Japan has

been shown to be a form of spirochetosis, and this appears to

have been confirmed in connexion with a very recent outbreak

among the troops in Flanders."

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/fever...wse?id=00811015

I must admit I only scanned the article and jumped to the conclusion that there was a Yellow Fever outbreak on Gallipoli.

I would be very grateful if you could scan the article for me.

Thanks

Matt

[Sue Light]

Yes, it's really hard to say what people were trying to describe by the term 'Yellow Fever'. People travelling today, for example, to the Congo, or Kenya, will be immunised against 'Yellow Fever', which has nothing to do with infectious hepatitis. But people who have jaundice due to viral hepatitis in this country, will often ask 'Have I got yellow fever?'. After all, they are yellow and they do have a fever!! So reading accounts of ninety years ago the difficulties with 'translating the mind' are enormous - I'm sure that 'yellow fever' was used frequently for hepatitis. But everything you have quoted definitely relates to hepatitis rather than to [as is currently understood] Yellow Fever. I will scan and send the pages over the weekend - can you let me have your e-mail address off list.

So if everybody is now suitably confused, I'll be off to work, to jab some hapless soul with Yellow Fever vac.!!

Regards - Sue