strange remedy
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Paper socks heated with oil to prevent frostbite
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
I wonder if it actually says 'treated with oil'. Sounds like a rudimentary sort of waterproofing.
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Article: Whale Oil – “like nothing we’ve ever smelt before”
It was estimated a battalion (almost 1,040 officers and men) at the front could use up to ten gallons of whale oil a day. “Each man was issued with a tin of the horrible stuff, and so keen were all the heads on whale oiling and whale-oiled feet, that it was a serious offence for one to lose his tin, of oil. Whale oil was certainly good for our boots, for it remained in them to ooze out later on when summer came along. It wasn’t so good for other things. There was whale oil in our food and on our tunics; many had sat down where a tin of it had been oozing; it was on our puttees and our blankets, waiting everywhere for winter to depart and the dust of summer roads to come to be caught by it.
Link and image of whale oil tin. http://www.shropshireremembers.org.uk/putting-sock-trench-foot/ PS The whale oil tin does not look that big!
See paragraph Foot Inspections in above article.
Also: What was the final treatment? Soldiers had to Dry their feet and change socks several times a day. Thigh boots were worn and dried every four days.
Link with photos: https://medicsinww1.wordpress.com/about/
PPS I would say as Ral suggests the word is treated.
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Could be treated with oil
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by
cyngast
moderator
The interesting part of the original comment to me is that they were paper socks! I'm assuming these were to be worn under regular socks. As Marie's article points out, this early in the war, March 1915, the RAMC hadn't yet quite worked out what the whole problem was and they tried all kinds of things.
Marie, the tin says on it that it is 2 fl. oz. or about 60 ml. I think it is just one man's tin. There are 128 fluid ounces in a gallon, so that would be 64 of those tins. Then times 10 for the company would be 640 tins. Roughly. For one day.
I liked the bit at the end of that article from Wilfred Owen to his mother.
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Yes, Cynthia that was an interesting article from Wilfred Owen the Poet, to his Mother. Unfortunately, he was killed on 4 November 1918 during the battle to cross the Sambre-Oise canal at Ors. Just a week before the 11th November, 1918 when the Armistice was signed.
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by
cyngast
moderator
In the 1st East Surrey Regt. in January 1915, the men were ordered to rub their feet with mineral jelly before going into the trenches. Another term for it is petroleum jelly, at least in the US.
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Rangoon Oil (yellow mineral jelly) - used "for greasing the bore of the rifle, the feet, and boots".
Link and image of the tin. http://www.tommyspackfillers.com/showitem.asp?itemRef=VS034Posted
