CHAPTER VIII
All this time, we were taking elaborate precautions with our patients against typhus. An admission tent was set apart; every man, on entrance, was placed on a mackintosh sheet, he was stripped, his clothes were at once wrapped in the sheet, labelled, and taken to the disinfector; the man was bathed in an adjoining portion of the tent, shaved, and rubbed with paraffin, wrapped in blankets, and sent to the ward tents; there clean shirts and pyjamas and nurses awaited him.
The doctors who received the patients, and the nurses or staff members who undressed and washed the newcomers, and I—when I was present at the reception—all wore a quaint-looking combination garment made of white batiste, which fastened tightly round the neck, the trouser feet, and the wrists. Long boots, rubber gloves, and an oilskin bathing cap completed the fancy dress. This anti-lice armour, together with other methods, successfully kept at bay the lice which carry typhus infection.
And against typhoid every possible sanitary precaution was taken, and water and milk were, of course, scrupulously boiled. The camp was said to be a model in outdoor sanitation, not only by the local authorities, who sent up men to take plans of the arrangements, but by Colonel Hunter and other British and American experts who inspected it. But, in spite of all our precautions, though we happily kept our patients free from typhus, and from typhoid, an epidemic of typhoid broke out amongst the staff. The only theory which seemed to offer a satisfactory explanation was that the typhoid germ might have entered by means of uncooked salad, though this had been properly washed in water which had been boiled.
On June 1st, our young Narednik (Sergeant-Major) appointed to keep the Serbian records of the hospital, and to look after the Austrian prisoners, was taken ill with typhus. He must have contracted this in the town, as no further case occurred. He was removed to a hospital in Kragujevatz, and another excellent young Narednik came.
On the same day, one of our nurses, and I, also became ill with fever, and it was naturally feared at first, that typhus had, after all, forced an entrance. But our complaint was, in Serbian phraseology, typhus abdominalis, and not typhus exemptimaticus—in other words, typhoid or enteric, and not typhus. This was perhaps a less serious disease, but it was disappointing enough, because every member of the unit, before leaving England only two months before, had been inoculated against typhoid.
At first, therefore, we hoped that we should only have one or two accidental cases, and that the attacks would be slight. But this was unhappily not to be. One after the other, seventeen women members of the unit were laid low, and three, including Mrs. Dearmer, died; no men, and none of the patients, were attacked.
It was a nightmare to hear every day, as I lay ill with my own attack, that another and still another victim had been laid low. But I shall never forget the sympathy and kindness of our Serbian official friends. Many of them, including Colonels Guentchitch and Popovitch, also Dr. Antitch, the fever expert, came twice daily, and Major Protitch always twice a day; they brought me flowers and ice—a rare luxury, as Kragujevatz possessed no ice machine—and sat and talked with me, and in every conceivable way, showed the truest friendship. Had they thought the green cheese in the moon good for me, they would have gone—on chivalrous quest—in search of it. But, thanks to the care of our own doctors, and nurses, and my own electric constitution, I was only ill for a short time, and was soon playing the old game of showing visitors round the camp.