Commentary on Typhus Control in World War II

This article for the volume to be published on the occasion of the retirement of Dr. Winternitz as Professor of Pathology is one of the final entries of a journal that was opened under his instruction about thirty-five years ago. Although the writer, as a medical student and resident, had received unforgettably vivid teaching from Dr. Winternitz during the period from 1911 to 1915, the associations with which this article deals began formally in 1916. In that year, after a few months of training under Dr. Hans Zinsser, I was put in charge of the new Laboratory for Bacteriology on the Fifth Floor which Dr. Winternitz had recently added to the old Pathology Building at the Johns Hopkins Medical School. In the original "protocol" of the experimental program, and of the even more experimental appointment, there was no mention of typhus fever and little, if anything, about medical administration. There were, of course, no indications of the unforseen events of the future. Nevertheless, the apparently accidental arrangements of those days started the series of happenings that finally included the opportunity to take part in the administration of typhus control in World War II. It is now clear that throughout the haphazard occurrences of the years since 1916 a main element in the Fifth Floor protocol, although unwritten, was the influence of Dr. Winternitz's philosophy and conceptions of relationships among people, communities, and ideas. Typhus and typhus control involve these relationships through the natural history of the disease and the social and economic implications of its prevention. Hence, a pupil of Dr. Winternitz working in that field would be especially aware of his influence, as well as of his example and contributions. It is with recollections going back to Baltimore before our country's entry into World War I, with thoughts of unbroken association over the years, and with awareness of his influence that these observations on typhus control in World War II are offered for this volume dedicated to Dr. Winternitz. The word "commentary" in the title of this paper is intended to mean an attempt to generalize from specific instances and to venture a few opinions