War Diaries Talk

epidemic

  • burtpongo1 by burtpongo1

    my reg has had an epidemic of P.V.O or poss.P.O.O any clue what it might be as 184 were hospitalized there is a theory that the flu virus was being incubated in big army camps

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  • dstrimsn.com by dstrimsn.com

    Possibly 'PUO' = 'Pyrexia of Unknown Origin' referring to an undiagnosed / unidentified condition presenting with a high temperature? Fairly common acronym in civilian medical reports of the time. Fits in with your flu theory.
    Regards
    Don

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  • simonedi by simonedi moderator

    yeh PUO is most likely, and amost certainly spanish flu (though there were other infections kicking about spanish flu is no1 suspect)

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  • David_Underdown by David_Underdown moderator

    June 1918 is a little early for Spanish Flu probably.

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  • burtpongo1 by burtpongo1

    it seemed to hit the regiment very quickly it would be interesting to see if it was effecting other regiment in the area tortefontain .the reason I said I though it might be the precursor to Spanish flu I remember seeing a program were it was speculated that the right conditions for the bird virus to jump the species barrier i.e large numbers of pigs hens and humans all very close to each other and then they were shipped home so it spread

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  • eatyourgreens by eatyourgreens moderator, admin

    The 1918 flu epidemic came up on the Old Weather forums too, a few years ago. People started recording the sick list figures on the forum, and noticed a rise in 1918. It might be interesting to compare the army diaries against ships logs from the same period. There's a blog post about the Old Weather data here: http://blog.oldweather.org/2011/01/12/hms-africa-in-action-against-orthomyxoviridae/

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  • dstrimsn.com by dstrimsn.com

    Excellent idea. The aggressive strain of 'Spanish' flu first started to appear in the Spring of 1918 and spread quickly, especially among newly arrived American troops. However there have been suggestions that it was circulating in a less aggressive strain from at least December 1916 when there was an outbreak at Aldershot and subsequently in France. It featured in an article in the British Medical Journal in July 1917, but there have been suggestions that details were played down or supressed at the time. The war diaries may shed some light on this. It was apparently described at the time as 'purulent bronchitis', catarrh - or indeed 'PUO'. Don

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  • eatyourgreens by eatyourgreens moderator, admin

    Is it worth starting a #PUO hashtag to track these mentions in the diaries? Maybe also add the number of sick in the comment too. I've tagged this page with the number of the sick and the date. Might be useful if we can get data across a number of pages.

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  • burtpongo1 by burtpongo1

    sorry been away for while dumb question time what do you mean by #puo

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    Read back in this thread. Second post, PUO = Pyrexia of unknown origin. I have been hash- tagging other out--breaks of disease like scabies and measles and I do think it worth doing to track this kind of thing.

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  • 01dgobbo by 01dgobbo

    I have PUO in 2nd Cavalry Division (No 2 Cavalry Field Ambulance 29 and 30 May 1917) in May 1917 on the Somme - it could be trench fever. The other disease prevalent in the Division at this time is TCT; does anybody know what this might be?

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    I've been racking my brains (and Google!) on this one and I can't come up with anything sensible. Your diarist doesn't have the clearest writing but I saw the page and I think you're right about it being TCT. The quote I saw from your Unit says something about there being many cases of it, "some of which were slight but slow in healing".

    After reading this I was trying to fit in something to do with trench foot as the quote makes it sound like a physical thing, but I can't come up with anything. Anyone else?

    This is the page that mentions it http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD00002o5

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    And today someone has come up with a suggestion on this and added this comment to the page (but obviously not spotted this thread)

    Probably ICT or inter connective tissue injury. See http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f124/world-war-1-medical-terms-54457.html
    (comment) by davidreaney4@aol.com

    Good find @davidreaney4@aol.com and it certainly could say "ICT" as the writing is very ambiguous!

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  • bootnecksbs by bootnecksbs

    Actually, apparently for those who know, its quite simple (only 'cus I've just asked my GP who's here to nick more of me blood)

    Pyrexia means Fever and...

    P.U.O means Pyrexia of Unknown Origin...

    so, yep you guessed it, Fever of Unknown Origin. (these days it's a temperature of 38.5 & above - not sure back in WW1 though)

    If you need anymore info, let me know and I'll ask him next time he comes.

    Regards, Max

    Check this out - just found it whilst quickly surfing:- http://hubpages.com/hub/Trench-Fever-in-World-War-1

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