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1 Describe key features.
One key feature of trench fever was that it affected more than ½ million men of the Western Front. For example it caused flu like symptoms that could last for a month and leave soldiers bedridden for weeks. A second key feature of trench fever was that it wasn’t discovered until 1918 to be caused by lice. For example delousing stations were set up. After this there was a decline in the numbers experiencing the condition. |
Source A
In mid-1915, the medical officer Major J H P Graham made this important observation from the Western Front:
‘A private belonging to an infantry regiment was admitted to a casualty clearing station from a field ambulance where he had been detained suffering from a febrile illness of three days' duration and of sudden onset.’ The characteristics of this condition were unlike anything that he had previously encountered: ‘the patient's condition on admission was marked by frontal headache, dizziness, severe lumbago, a feeling of stiffness down the front of the thighs, and severe pains in the legs referred chiefly to the shins.’1 One of the most curious qualities was the relapsing fever’.
2a Utility
Source A is partially useful for an enquiry into the treatment of trench fever as it tells us about the symptoms, which we can infer would have been treated like flu. For example ‘marked by frontal headache, dizziness, severe lumbago, a feeling of stiffness down the front of the thighs, and severe pains in the legs referred chiefly to the shins. The source is also useful as it is clear the medical officer was not sure how to treat trench fever this ‘febrile illness…nor the relapsing fever’. The source is useful for describing the onset and symptoms of the fever. Furthermore it an observation by Graham a medical officer who was an eyewitness to the disease. It is accurate as the symptoms of trench fever where that it had a recurrent fever and flu like symptoms could last for three weeks.
However its utility is extremely limited for an enquiry into trench fever because it only really details the symptoms and not the treatments. For a historian looking at the treatments of trench fever this is limited as it was produced in 1915, whereby trench fever was a relatively new disease and this reflects that medical professionals didn’t know how to treat it. We know from our own knowledge that no treatments were affective until the link with lice was made in 1917 and the army open delousing stations, this greatly reduced the cases.
In mid-1915, the medical officer Major J H P Graham made this important observation from the Western Front:
‘A private belonging to an infantry regiment was admitted to a casualty clearing station from a field ambulance where he had been detained suffering from a febrile illness of three days' duration and of sudden onset.’ The characteristics of this condition were unlike anything that he had previously encountered: ‘the patient's condition on admission was marked by frontal headache, dizziness, severe lumbago, a feeling of stiffness down the front of the thighs, and severe pains in the legs referred chiefly to the shins.’1 One of the most curious qualities was the relapsing fever’.
2a Utility
Source A is partially useful for an enquiry into the treatment of trench fever as it tells us about the symptoms, which we can infer would have been treated like flu. For example ‘marked by frontal headache, dizziness, severe lumbago, a feeling of stiffness down the front of the thighs, and severe pains in the legs referred chiefly to the shins. The source is also useful as it is clear the medical officer was not sure how to treat trench fever this ‘febrile illness…nor the relapsing fever’. The source is useful for describing the onset and symptoms of the fever. Furthermore it an observation by Graham a medical officer who was an eyewitness to the disease. It is accurate as the symptoms of trench fever where that it had a recurrent fever and flu like symptoms could last for three weeks.
However its utility is extremely limited for an enquiry into trench fever because it only really details the symptoms and not the treatments. For a historian looking at the treatments of trench fever this is limited as it was produced in 1915, whereby trench fever was a relatively new disease and this reflects that medical professionals didn’t know how to treat it. We know from our own knowledge that no treatments were affective until the link with lice was made in 1917 and the army open delousing stations, this greatly reduced the cases.