Another kind of Pacific War

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Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases

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Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases - 4/18/2021 5:51:46 AM

Dili

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Hamilton_Fairley

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RE: Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases - 4/18/2021 7:55:39 AM

Leandros

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Interesting, tks for posting, Dili!

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RE: Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases - 4/18/2021 3:27:20 PM

Platoonist

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In addition to anti-malarial devices like moquito netting and quinine a lot of DDT was deployed. By mid-1943, amphibious operations in the Southwest Pacific were usually accompanied by dusting flights that dropped tons of DDT over the beachhead to help eliminate the disease vector.

I seem to recall reading that American plans to build an airbase in the Santa Cruz islands were abandoned partly because the island was infested with a strain of cerebral malaria so virulent that it had previously terminated an attempt by the Spanish to found a colony on Ndeni. (The other reason for giving up on building an airstrip there was that the terrain was pretty lousy and heavily wooded)

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RE: Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases - 4/18/2021 4:27:33 PM

Q-Ball

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My grandfather was a pilot in the Pacific Theater (he flew an L-4 Piper Cub as an artillery spotter for 41st Division). He spent 2 months in a hospital in Zamboanga with bad case of Hepatitis, and it was one of his brushes with death in the Pacific (the 2 others being a takeoff accident, and an encounter with a Zero).

Tropical Disease was very real for the troops there. He had a kind of orange hue from the anti-malarial drugs you had to take. He mostly was in New Guinea, and didn't ever want to go back...just miserable to live there

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RE: Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases - 4/18/2021 5:29:42 PM

Sardaukar

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Dengue fever is not fun either, I have experience...

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RE: Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases - 4/19/2021 9:16:07 AM

Ian R

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Quinine suppresses the symptoms of malaria. In the early 1940s,there was no "cure" for malaria, other than moving units south or east out of the malarial areas, and putting the entire unit in hospital for six months while the malaria worked its way through and out of the soldier's systems. While a previous infection builds some level of resistance, that dissipates if the sufferer is no longer being bitten. The Australian 14th & 30th Brigades, which did some of the heavy lifting in PNG in the early days, were effectively stood down and broken up during the rest and rehabilitation periods.

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RE: Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases - 4/19/2021 9:57:48 AM

Sardaukar

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Mepacrine, also called quinacrine or by the trade name Atabrine, saved Allies in Pacific since quinine-production areas were occupied by Japanese.

Ironically, it was invented by Germans.

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RE: Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases - 4/20/2021 3:46:43 PM

sstevens06

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

Dengue fever is not fun either, I have experience...

Truth right here.

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RE: Another kind of Pacific War - Diseases - 4/24/2021 3:35:02 AM

RangerJoe

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I read something about the US Civil War where 3% of the entire US population died due to disease. But the number of deaths went down after strict sanitation practices were enforced.

I also read where the first President Harrison died due to a disease, probably Typhoid fever. Apparently the White House water source was downstream of the sanitary waste dump . . .

quote:

Science Rewrites the Death of America�s Shortest-Serving President
William Henry Harrison may have died of typhoid fever

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-rewrites-death-americas-shortest-serving-president-180950343/

Just what did flavor his coffee?

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