Struggle against typhus in the Caucasian front during the 1st World War.

Abstract

As an infectious disease, typhus has triggered many epidemics during the course of wars and caused thousands of death all through the ages. The French physician Charles Nicolle (1886-1936) defined its agent as a louse transferring the disease from man to man in 1909 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1928. Many cases were reported during the 1st World War both in the European and the Ottoman armies; and one of the most severe epidemics broke in the Caucasian front; a great number of civilians and soldiers died at winter in 1914 and 1915. Lice had to be destroyed in order to prevent the epidemic, but etuves in the Caucasian front was too few to achieve it. Clothes were cleansed in ovens by means of a method proposed by Dr. Abdülkadir Noyan (1886-1977). On March 28, 1915 the first typhus vaccination, obtained from the infected blood of the patients, was applied by Dr. Tevfik Salim (Saklam) (1882-1963). In 1916 Dr. Ahmet Fikri Tüzer discovered a disinfection apparatus called "buğu sandiği" (vapour box) which was widely used in the Caucasian front after 1917. This apparatus was highly useful in controlling the typhus epidemics. 164 health officers lost their lifes in the Caucasian front between 1914-1918, in addition, 7310 military casualties were recorded from 1915 to the end of the war.