ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the author's recollections and reflections on his experiences in public health during the Great War. From a medico-hygienic point of view, the Great War had momentous results. Soon after the War began, cerebro-spinal fever was occurring both in the troops and among civilians. Encephalitis lethargica like trench-fever was a newcomer among diseases during the War, or was at least then first recognised in England. It made its appearance in London and in a number of provincial towns in the early part of 1918. Apart from the fatalities of war itself, the most devastating event of the latter part of the war period was the occurrence of pandemic influenza. Influenza should be regarded as a member of a group of catarrhal infectious diseases which in the aggregate are perhaps the chief enemies of human health. The War, notwithstanding the notable advances in medicine and surgery incited by it, was the greatest calamity in the history of civilised life.
