Page 58 - Stradanje i humanizam

stomach and recurrent typhoid, followed by cholera, diphtheria and dysentery. Valjevo, unfortunately,
got the sad role of the place of the greatest suffering, and at the same time the place of illness and death;
from Valjevo, the epidemic flowed over Serbia, like a river. The main sources of infection were the sick
Austro-Hungarian prisoners, and already infected patients who were sent from Valjevo to Kragujevac,
Vrnjačka Banja, Niš, Skopje, Bitola... In addition to the sick and infected Austro-Hungarian soldiers,
the Serbian army wounded were recklessly accommodated in Valjevo and in other places. Railway
stations and trains were full of soldiers, prisoners and the sick civilians. In the cold and rainy weather,
people sought shelter and pressed close to each other. Many refugees from the interior started returning
to their homes, and after the expulsion of the enemy forces, they slept on the floor in taverns, inns and
warehouses, mostly in places where there had previously been large numbers of the infected people. In
all those places, lice, which left the patient as soon as he started to develop fever, waited for their new
victims. The main routes and sites for the spread of the epidemic were primarily railway tracks and
roads, followed by temporary and permanent hospitals.
Large numbers of refugees, especially from the Drina valley and Mačva, had no place to return to, as
their houses had been destroyed and burnt down, their property looted, without any livestock and food
left. John Reed stated that the refugees came off the train and stayed there “near the rails, with all their
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belongings in one sack thrown over the shoulder, silently watching the ruins of their homes.“ The
authorities, having recognized the problem, stopped the returns of these refugees because they could
not provide them even the most basic living conditions. It so happened that some of the returnees were
stopped once again in Valjevo.
Already from 13 December 1914, in Valjevo, the last of the taverns “Venecija“, “Suša“, “Grozd“,
and “Srpski kralj“ were seized for the purposes of accommodating a large number of sick people, and
thus became isolated hospital wards. With no available additional space to accommodate the patients,
the High Command staff, not knowing how typhus is transmitted, adopted a disastrous decision: on 21
December 1914 they ordered the dismissal of all not severely wounded and sick soldiers from all the
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hospitals. The consequences were devastating. Typhus came with the sick to almost every house or a
soldier who had returned uninfected caught it from those who were sick and spread it out. The Serbian
government requested urgent assistance from foreign doctors. Even before that, the military
authorities, knowing that every army and large troop movements are followed by infectious diseases, in
October called on the embassies in Paris, St. Petersburg and London asking for 10 bacteriologists and
20 epidemiologists, including the support staff. They had been receiving news about individual cases of
ld
typhus, truth be to , three cases in different places in total, as well as dysentery, and a description of one
smallpox case, but unverified. At the time of the Great War, requesting doctors from the countries that
were also involved in the military operations mainly had poor results.
Having noted that the number of patients suffering from all three types of typhoid increases daily
and rapidly, the government established a National Committee for the Prevention of Infectious
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Diseases. Initially, the work of the National Committee was limited to seeking ways to stop the
epidemic at its beginning, but in vain. By mid-December 1914, the epidemic had developed. All reports
from the hospitals showed a dramatic increase of the number of the infected, especially in Valjevo,
where somewhat later the epidemic broke out like fire, immediately after 15 January 1915, mowing
down everything in sight. The most troubling was that the number of new infections rose sharply in the
combat units. Lacking a sufficient number of doctors, which was constantly declining due to their
falling ill and dying, the unit commanders moved their field hospitals closer to Valjevo. That made it
easier also to supply the units, as they had the railway in the vicinity. In the Fifth Regiment, the First
Field Hospital of the Danube Division first call was in the direction of Grabovica, the First Field
Hospital of the Drina Division first call in Brankovina, the First Field Hospital of the Morava Division
second call in the Pečka and Pričevic, the Second Field Hospital of the Danube Division second call in
Osečina, and the Seventeenth Regiment hospital was in Koceljeva. In accordance with the order, only
the most severe wounded were singled out and referred to the Valjevo hospitals for further care.
Attempts were made for the doctors from the one hospital to provide help to the sick in other hospitals as
well.
The auxiliary hospitals in the town, in the buildings of the Grammar School, Medical School,
Divisional Armoury, the Fifth Regiment barracks, and the District Hospital at the beginning of the
epidemic and for a long time afterwards accommodated only the Austro-Hungarian patients. With the
restauration and cleaning of other buildings, they had to accommodate the excess numbers of sick
patients from other hospitals, and only after that the sick from the Serbian army. It so happened that, due
to the circumstances, the majority of the sick patients from the Serbian troops spent in the winter in field
hospitals, in tents, and the Austro-Hungarians in the Valjevo hospitals, with a large number of
physicians to provide assistance to them. The Valjevo medical staff did not for a moment differentiate
between the sick patients, and there is not a single such case described in the numerous diaries of the
Austro-Hungarian soldiers or foreigners. They gave their lives treating them responsibly, in good faith,
with exceptional sacrifice. Between the Serbian and the abandoned doctors and medical staff, there was
an honest relationship of trust developed. It is known that especially doctor Avram Vinaver, who had
serious problems with the occupying authorities, advocated exceptionally and in every place that all
patients and staff prisoners should be provided the best possible care. Deadly diseases mowed down
soldiers on the both sides, the citizens, newcomers, doctors and paramedics alike. In that horrible
drama, facing terrible and painful sufferings and trials, they were all mere mortals, without uniforms
and without colours.
Doctors were powerless not only in stopping, but also in slowing down the diseases, of which
typhus was the most dangerous one. There were days when, in some hospitals, out of 1,600 new
admission soldiers, 1,100 of them were sick. In some places, in the most difficult days, the mortality rate
was as high as 70% of the total number of patients. It was said that those who did not die in the battlefield
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