Tag: Tonganoxie Community Historical Society (Page 2 of 2)

Trench Fever is caused by a Gm positive bacterial rod, Bartonella quintana. It was considered non life threatening. Today this is rarely fatal unless there is no treatment of the disease or endocarditis is a factor.

Trench Fever during WW1 was considered a significant disease by the military, and affected over 1,000,000 soldiers. The disease is transmitted by a bite from the human body louse, but the disease causing organism was the bacteria located in the feces of the human body louse. The body louse bites the human. This bite offers the bacteria located in the louse fecal material an opening into the tissue thus infecting that person.  Later another louse bites the infected human and then it can transmit the infection to another human host. ...read more

Life in the trenches was not a happy place. The total environment around the trenches was a combination of several problems all of which easily aided the progression to disease.

Consider some of the more signifiant problems: cold moisture/water within the confines of the trenches, dead and wounded bodies of soldiers as well as dead horses (8,000,000 horses were killed in WW1), control of waste including food and human excrement, and stress both physical and mental. Soldiers lived in close proximity without adequate water for maintaining cleanliness.  I personally can’t imagine worrying about coughing around someone or worrying about hand cleanliness when I am worrying about staying alive. ...read more