Hepatitis.

This is coolbert:

Speak of the devil.

Only today, in the newspaper, is an article about the influenza epidemic of 1918.

Was extremely virulent.

Called the "Swine" flu and killed about 20 million persons world wide.

In that one year, more people died during the epidemic than were killed in all the battlefields of the previous four years of World War One!!

And where is it believed that the epidemic started?

In a military camp in Kansas that is where Ft. Riley is now. Someone contracted the virus at the camp, was sent to Europe, and the rest is history.

When the virus returned to the U.S. with returning troops, it had evidently mutated into an even more deadly form. The number of hosts had increased so dramatically that genetic mutations became far more numerous and this led to the eventual deadly strain of the virus.

So far there has not been a futher outbreak of the "Swine" flu in the subsequent decades. But the docs are holding their breath about this one.

Now, it was observed in WW1 that when recruits were brought together in large groups from all over the U.S., sickness on a large scale was quite often a result. Troops were exposed to virus and bacteria that they had not encountered before, their bodies never having a chance to build up immunity. Farm boys, normally healthy and strong, were especially prone to illness, having lived most of their lives in isolated communities. Another example of how military life can be hazardous to your health.

Now, with regard to those innoculations I talked about in a previous post?

Those of you that did your military service will remember the gun injectors that were used in the mid-60's.

Used for mass innoculations.

Since they are needleless, said to be safer and less prone to passing on infection than if the conventional needles were used for injections.

Perhaps not so?!

It has been observed recently that there has been a dramatic rise in the number of cases of hepatitis in men in their 40's, 50's, and 60's. For no apparent reason.

Now, why might this be so?

As you may recall, some persons, when getting the gun injection, would flinch and be cut by the injector gun. A stream of blood would run down their arm. And some of this blood would get on the tip of the injector gun the tip of the injector gun NOT BEING CLEANED! When the next injection to the next person in line was given, probably a microscopic amount of blood on the tip was also injected into the recipient.

Inadvertently this blood borne disease may have been spread from person to person.

This may have been a source for a whole bunch of persons getting hepatitis, this disease having an incubation period of decades in some cases. Military medicine, as I have said, can be hazardous to your health!

coolbert.