Yemen—Vietnam—South Africa—Rhodesia—Greece—Hungary

Extract

The medical team installed at Amara in North Yemen worked at high pressure throughout May. Consultations averaged more than a hundred daily. The same sicknesses (amoeba, bilharzia, typhoid, scurvy, avitaminosis, etc.…) are repeatedly mentioned in each of the doctor-delegates' reports. An epidemic of malaria has been reported in the Amara area where it broke out after the rainy season in April, rainfall being exceptionally heavy this year. Dr. Pietro Duchini, doctor-delegate of the ICRC, had amongst other things to perform minor surgical operations, whose numbers were considerably increased as a result of military action. In the aid post set up by extremely rudimentary means he treated wounds of a more or less serious character caused by fire-arms, often complicated by open fractures, and carried out a large number of extractions of shrapnel. In spite of very insufficient conditions of asepsis, no septic complications took place in four months of daily surgical work.