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- Title
Pociągi dezynfekcji. Walka z wszami na polskich kolejach w latach 1918-1920.
- Authors
MIESZKOWSKI, ŁUKASZ
- Abstract
Trains played a key role in the biggest typhus pandemic in history, which in 1915-1922 affected Central and Eastern Europe as well as North Asia, claiming the lives of at least several million victims. As the only effective means of transport for groups such as troops or refugees, the railways were conducive to the spread of the disease, but, on the other hand, they were also used to fight it. One of the forms of using the railways during the epidemic was disinfecting-bathing trains, to which the present article is devoted. It features three aspects of the functioning of such trains. First, their origins, detailed technical description and the history of the development of the Polish anti-typhus rolling stock. Secondly, the operation of the trains in conditions of constant structural shortages -- characteristic of the first, wartime years of the Second Polish Republic -- and the related issue of the effectiveness of the campaign. Thirdly, an attempt to present the functioning of the trains in the broad context of the fight against infectious disease epidemics from that period and suggestions of their possible interpretation in the light of anthropology and biopolitics. The article is largely based on the hitherto unpublished archive documents of the Sanitary Authority of the Supreme Command of the Polish Army and the Government Commissioner for the Red Cross.
- Subjects
EASTERN Europe; INFECTIOUS disease transmission; UNPUBLISHED materials; COMMUNICABLE diseases; ROLLING stock; CAMPAIGN issues; AMERICAN Red Cross; ARCHIVES; ANTHROPOLOGY; BIOSURVEILLANCE
- Publication
Historical Review / Przeglad Historyczny, 2021, Vol 112, Issue 4, p869
- ISSN
0033-2186
- Publication type
Article