ITALIAN ARMY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19128, 24 September 1936, Page 12

ITALIAN ARMY

HEALTH IN ETHIOPIA MEDTCAL PRECAUTIONS NATIVES' .WRETCHED LOT ADDIS ABABA, July 18. The early prediction that tropical disease and climatic conditions would make the Kalian armies impotent while Ethiopians thrived under conditions to which they were accustomed has proved wrong. The reverse has in fact been I rue.

Professor Aldo Castellani, Medical Inspector General of the Italian army, discoverer of tetra vaccine and expert on tropical diseases, told the United Press that "the health of the Italian aiiny to-day is as good as it was a year ago when first mobilised."

Ethiopians are. now going to receive the. same medical and prophylactic advantages which the Italian army enjoyed, but more than that, the power of government is placed behind missions and mission hospitals in an effort to bring health and cleanliness to this nation. SANITATION 1 FORCE CREATED Professor Castellani lias made plans for sanitation and hospitalisation 'in Addis Ababa. A civil department of sanitation has been created, with an obstetric office, laboratory and veterinary officer. Free ambulance service and free wards for both Europeans and natives have been established, and wards for infectious cases have been set apart. Of all the foreign hospitals in the. city only the United Presbyterian and American Leper Hospital were permitted to continue independent activity. The correspondent recalls what he had seen and heard of the Ethiopian army. | He remembers sick-, starved wretches j who straggled through Addis Ababa on their way homeward. At least 20 per [ cent were sick- or wounded, while many | of the others could scarcely plod along. I They told tales of .suffering, saying that thousands were lying along the road completely exhausted and dying. Of the sick, more than half were suffering from dysentery. .Many of theso died within a week. SCURVY FEARED At one time in Addis Ababa, everyone who could was squeezing limes for juice to relieve the scurvy that was sweeping the, southern army. Epidemics of smallpox crippled Mulu Gueta's army while, on flic- way north. The hospital at Desse was overcrowded with pneumonia cases—the disease contracted while sleeping blanket-less on the cold, high plateaux with, their bitter night winds. Women and children by the thousands went with the armies. Only a few returned. Soldiers said disease had finished them.

The dread typhus travelled from camp to camp, claiming its victims in the course of a few days. Malaria and relapsing fever were common. Red Cross doctors vainly strove to meet the need, but could only service small areas. Sickness, cold, hunger, and Italians—these defeated the. Ethiopian army. Trofessor Castellani's tale of health precautions and success of measures taken is in striking contrast to the tale of Ethiopian misery. LEMONS RATIONED TO ARMIES He said: "There was not a single case of scurvy in the Italian armiea north or south, because,we gave them, lemons regularly. In the Ogaden the men received a lemon every two days, and in (he north two in a week."

Malaria was held in check by giving each soldier three quinine tablets daily. There were few oases, but the disease was always under control. ■

Malaria has been the scourge, of white armies lighting in the tropics. This was the first major colonial campaign where effectiveness was .nob reduced by it. Typhoid that crippled American and British forces in the. SpanisJi-American and Boer wars was unknown in Italian camps due to the use of tetra vaccine."