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Old 18-08-20, 06:58
Tony Smith's Avatar
Tony Smith Tony Smith is offline
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Default What did you do in the war, Granddad?

A new book is about to be released on the topic of Venereal Diseases in the Australian Army in the 20th century.

https://www.bigskypublishing.com.au/books/vd/

Long a topic of bawdy humour and embarrassment, I was quite surprised to read of the severity of the problem when it states that "During the twentieth century at least 125,000 Australian soldiers contracted VD while serving in overseas deployments — the equivalent of six World War I infantry divisions." In this respect, it has had a debilitating effect on the fighting capacity of the Army.

Dr Ian Howie-Willis has written several books relating to the Australian Army's RAMC and it's critical influence on the fighting Army. I've not seen any similar books relating to the British or Canadian Armed Services, but believe it would broadly reflect a similar trend through several wars.
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Old 22-08-20, 21:13
Mike Cecil Mike Cecil is offline
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A more in-depth study will be very interesting, thanks for alerting us, Tony.

I touched on the subject in 'Warriors' Chapel', where, in a group of just 123 WW1 volunteers that were the subject of the book, 15 men required treatment for VD, some multiple times, for a total of 1,187 days ineffective - the same as one man being unavailable for duty for 3 years and 3 months! And that does not count the on-cost of such infection - the medical and logistics systems having to devote time and resources to looking after those individuals.

Dr Peter Stanley devotes a chapter to the subject in his 2010 book 'Bad Characters: Sex Crime Mutiny Murder in the AIF' - an excellent book. According to Peter, the AIF's infection rate during WW1 was about 144 per thousand, while the Brits had 24/1000, Canada 49/1000 and New Zealand at 134/1000. 1 ADH at Bulford UK was kept pretty busy!

The AIF were rated the 'bad boys of the Empire' for many reasons, the VD infection rate being just one aspect.

Mike
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