ABSTRACT
The Burma–Thai Railway was planned to stretch for 415 kilometres, from Ban Pong in southern Thailand to Thanbyuzayat in Burma. The aim was to provide the Japanese with a land route to supply their troops in Burma. Japanese engineers’ initial surveys estimated that the construction would take five to six years, with thousands of workers needed to lay track through jungle and mountain. On the Railway, medical officers had to practise a type of medicine few had encountered before: without medical supplies, operating theatres, diagnostic or sterilising equipment, or even everyday items such as syringes or bandages. They were forced, as Coates commented, like the Israelites in Egypt, ‘to make bricks without straw’. Cholera could spread through a camp in a matter of days, and many of those who contracted it died—usually between 60 and 80 per cent, depending on the camp.
