Armies -- Medical and sanitary affairs; Epidemics -- History; Medicine, Military -- History; Military hygiene
Regarding the appearance of typhus fever in Berlin we are informed by
Hufeland and Horn.[131] First to occur there (in the months of February
and March 1813) were numerous cases of ‘nervous fever’, which was
doubtless typhoid fever. Still it is likely that cases of typhus fever
also occurred at that time, for Horn, in writing about ‘nervous fevers’
in the Charité, describes the exanthema with the same words that
Hufeland uses in reference to later cases. Among these patients there
were already some who had returned from Russia.[132] At all events, in
the first part of March 1813 there occurred cases of contagious typhus,
which was brought to Berlin by French, and later by Russian soldiers;
the observed ways of infection, regarding which Hufeland informs us, are
mentioned above. In the middle of April there were 246 typhus-fever
patients in the Charité. In order to prevent the disease from spreading
in this hospital, Hufeland adopted strict measures of precaution. The
patients were all carefully isolated on the second floor, which was shut
off by means of a grating. The newly-arrived patients were supplied with
clean, fresh linen, their clothing was disinfected for several days in
hydrochloric acid, and then washed in boiling water containing lye,
while objects of no value were burned. The sick-rooms were constantly
ventilated by leaving the windows open, and were thoroughly cleaned
every day. The physicians, surgeons, and attendants, before they entered
the sick-rooms, had to put on black mantles of glazed linen, and on
leaving the rooms they had to wash their hands and faces in cold water
and rinse out their mouths. In this way the disease was prevented from
spreading in the hospital itself.
After the battle of Leipzig typhus fever broke out anew in Berlin;
according to Horn, 144 cases of ‘nerve fever’ were received into the
Charité in January 1814, 92 in February, 54 in March, 14 in April, 8 in
May, and none in June. Regarding the total mortality in the epidemic of
typhus fever in Berlin, which in the year 1813 had about 155,000
inhabitants, the following table, compiled by Gurlt,[133] gives us
information; there died in:
1812. 1813. 1814.
_Total _Total _From _Total _From
deaths._ deaths._ Typhus._ deaths._ Typhus._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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