1915 typhus and relapsing fever epidemic in Serbia

In the early stages of the First World War, Serbia suffered an epidemic of typhus and relapsing fever.[1]

The epidemic first appeared in the late autumn of 1914, after the second Austrian offensive.[2] By December the Austro-Hungarian troops were pushed out of Serbia for the second time in ten days. Around 50,000 wounded and sick remained in hospitals. Great problems with the lack of accommodation and food were affecting not only hospitals but the civilian population as well, besides that, there were around 50,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners that had to be accommodated and fed too. Dr. Roman Sondermajer established a large field hospital near Kragujevac, using army barracks to care for the sick and wounded.

Flora Sandes, who started as a volunteer British nurse, recalled the conditions at the hospital in Kragujevac and meeting Dr. Sondermajer for the first time:

The hospital, on the outskirts of Kragujevac, was overflowing with patients, both Serbs and POWs. Surgeon Dr. Roman Sondermeyer, the immaculately dressed head of the Military Medical Service of the Serbian army, stepped forward smartly to meet us (...) "Twelve hundred patients, two surgeons, eight nurses, and some five hospital orderlies!" wrote Emily of her shock upon realising how many patients there were and how few staff [3]

A contingent of Scottish nurses and physicians served in the fight against the epidemic, with many, including Margaret Neill Fraser, Louisa Jordan, and Elizabeth Ross, dying of typhus.

British Military Sanitary Committee to Serbia

In 1915, the British military doctor William Hunter headed the British Military Sanitary Committee to Serbia tasked with stopping the epidemic. The epidemic was stopped by June 1915 by introduction of several movement restriction measures and by introduction of two new disinfection methods, the "railway van disinfector", and the "barrel disinfector" now known as the Serbian barrel.[4][5]

In 1920, Hunter published a detailed account on the epidemic in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine.[6]

References
  1. "The Serbian Typhus Epidemic - 100 years on - European studies blog". blogs.bl.uk. Retrieved 2020-04-13.
  2. Miller, Louise (2018). Fine Brother. Alma Books. ISBN 978-0714545493.
  3. Louise Miller (16 January 2014). A Fine Brother: The Life of Captain Flora Sandes. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1-84688-245-6.
  4. "William Hunter | RCP Museum". history.rcplondon.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-04-13.
  5. Hunter, William (1918). "New Methods Of Disinfection For The Prevention And Arrest Of Lice-Borne Diseases (Typhus, Relapsing, And Trench Fevers)". The British Medical Journal. 2 (3008): 198–201. ISSN 0007-1447. JSTOR 20310811.
  6. Hunter, William (1920). "The Serbian Epidemics of Typhus and Relapsing Fever in 1915: Their Origin, Course, and Preventive Measures employed for their Arrest". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 13 (Sect Epidemiol State Med): 29–158. doi:10.1177/003591572001301502. ISSN 0035-9157. PMC 2152681. PMID 19981291.


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