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TYPHUS FEVER AND OTHER DISEASES 
CARRIED BY THE LOUSE 
Typhus fever, known also as ship fever, camp fever, and jail 
fever, was one of the deadliest of the diseases of the Middle Ages. 
Wherever men were crowded together under the filthy conditions 
which surrounded our ancestors, this pestilence raged. In sinister 
alliance with famine, it scourged unhappy Ireland so persistently that 
it was known as “‘Irish ague.”’ In England its contagion was spread 
even through the law-courts, and several notable outbreaks among 
judges, lawyers, and spectators were dubbed the “Black Assizes”’ 
during the sixteenth century. In Tuscany, between 1550 and 1554, 
more than a million people are said to have died of typhus. 
Professor Curschmann says of this malady, ““‘between 1846 and 
1848 more than a million cases of typhus occurred in England and 
more than 300,000 in Ireland, the outbreak starting after the great 
famine ofthe earlier year. In every century typhus fever has followed 
in the wake of armies. During the Thirty Years’ War it claimed 
more victims than did the weapons of the contestants. It was the 
terror of the Napoleonic campaigns and decimated the French Army, 
already demoralized physically and morally by the terrible retreat 
from Moscow. During the Crimean War it decimated both the 
French and English armies, especially the former.’’ 
Dr. R. Bruce Low describes the experience of France with 
“camp fever’ as follows: ‘““When.the French in 1812 began their 
historical retreat from Moscow, they had at least a thousand fever 
cases among them, and by the time they reached Vilna many other 
attacks had occurred with numerous deaths. At the beginning of 
December, 1812, the Russians had taken 30,000 French prisoners, 
many of whom were ill of fever. The hospitals at Vilna were over- 
flowing with the sick, who suffered greatly from cold and lack of 
food. Many had no bed or bedding, and had to lie on rotten straw, 
sometimes side by side with the dead. Of 25,000 cases sent to hos- 
pitals at Vilna, less than 3,000 were alive at the end of January, 
1813. From the troops the disease in many instances spread to the 
civil population. For example, in the fortified town of Metz no 
fewer than 7,752 soldiers of the garrison died of typhus during 1814, 
as well as 1,294 other persons in the civil hospitals. From Metz the 
infection spread to the neighboring districts, and by the end of the 
year no fewer than 10,329 deaths from typhus had occurred in the 
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