Good article on the role of disease in warfare. My father was hospitalised in Italy with Malaria. Always wondered why you never see troops with their sleeves rolled up in combat zones these days, but just assumed it was for camouflage. Never thought about the disease angle. The past and present threat of vector-borne diseases in deployed troops - ScienceDirect
Interesting article, Gordon. So many diseases. I never thought there were so many. I recall reading about disease ridden German soldiers on the Eastern Front. I'm curious how many Allied soldiers suffered from these vector borne diseases. I think lice were endemic on both sides since bathing was limited. Nonetheless, something to think about.
Some of the statistics in there are scary, Lou. Apparently Sandfly Fever was as big a threat in Sicily as the Wehrmacht.
The lice were also a massive problem for the Finns as well. That is why it was ordered to use the sauna at least once a week which killed them. There is a joke " I slept in bed and withdraw it from the wall due to lice. But the lice grabbed the bed back against the wall".....
..I thought Guadalcanal had a ''big'' Malaria problem....hot, humid, rainy, swampy, etc = huge petri dish of problems ....I thought they did some land /water engineering to control the problem on the Canal, etc
I think you have heeard this one before. Still, incredible. During World War II, particularly during the North African desert campaign, the combination of sand and lack of hygienic conditions proved disastrous to uncircumcised men. The loss of these soldiers to active duty in combat areas resulted in prophylactic circumcision being performed on many recruits at training centers. A World War II medical report from the U.S. Army referred to the “enormous man-hour loss from disease peculiar to the uncircumcised man,” and stated that “hospital admission from paraphimosis, phimosis, balanitis and condyloma accuminata during 1942 – 1945 totaled 146,793. Had these patients been circumcised before induction, this total would probably have been close to zero”. A similar though less well-documented loss to active duty occurred in uncircumcised servicemen in Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War.
Was that peculiar to the US Army? Never even heard of it being suggested by the British forces before.
