114 LICE AND THEIR MENACE TO MAN 



come lousy, and increasingly so, since some lice 

 are always present to commence the general 

 infestation. Once introduced among them a 

 louse-borne epidemic spreads like wild-fire. We 

 in this country, and our Allies in France and 

 Italy, have mercifully not experienced this con- 

 dition of things, and are unlikely to do so, for 

 though the cost of things has been much enhanced, 

 famine prices have not been touched, and we have 

 still, most of us, two shirts, one on the back and 

 one in the wash. Our enemies have been less 

 fortunate. The disease was common in Europe 

 to the east of Germany, and naturally occur- 

 rences of it were not uncommon in the Russian 

 Army. Cases broke out among the prisoners 

 taken by the Germans, and epidemics started 

 in the prison camps, for these were much over- 

 crowded, and there was little facility for cleanli- 

 ness in them, while no encouragement to destroy 

 vermin was afforded by the callous authorities. 

 From these we know that the disease spread to 

 the large German cities, including Berlin and 

 Hamburg, but to what extent they prevailed 

 there we do not know. The Germans have been 

 forced to develop the factors necessary for epi- 

 demics of typhus and relapsing fever among 

 their civil population owing to the scarcity of 

 soap and of clothing. 



The sad story of the Wittenberg Camp is well 

 known. Typhus broke out among our prisoners 

 there, owing to contact with Russian prisoners. 



