Chapter seven

It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

By the time Bill was posted to Macedonia, the war for the allies on the Western Front had turned into a bloody stalemate. Trench warfare had produced no gains that could be sustained by either side. Casualties were horrific. By contrast, the Eastern Front was more dynamic but by 1916 the main fighting was in northern Macedonia on the Bulgarian border. Bill refers to two battle sites, the Struma and Doiron (now spelled Dojron) Fronts. He had a field laboratory that could be moved on the back of a truck. He describes times in Salonika (Thessaloniki) and in the field hospitals behind the lines. Again he provides a picture of warfare as he saw it.

This chapter is part of Bill’s autobiography and is based on a series of talks he gave after the war. There is a note in Stretcher Bearers at the Double relating to the Fourth Reunion of the unit held at the Walker House Hotel in Toronto on Saturday, April 14. 1928. ⁱ

“…The feature of the evening was an illustrated lecture by ex-Staff Deadman. His wartime experiences in Mesopotamia were the subject of his address. During his long stay in the East he took hundreds of photos, covering a wide range of territory and activity. These pictures were thrown on a screen and rounded out a very fascinating and informative lecture.”

This was written when the book was published in 1936 so they got the location wrong – it should have been Macedonia, not Mesopotamia but otherwise it is a favour­able review.

i Noyes, Frederick; Stretcher Bearers at the Double – History of the Fifth Canadian Field Ambulance which served overseas during the Great War of 1914-1918. The Hunter Rose Company, Toronto, 1936. p. 285.

The Reminiscences
of
a Medical Officer in Macedonia – 1917-18. ¹

An Address
at
Hamilton, Ontario, October 1928

William J. Deadman, B.A., M.B.
Captain, Royal Army Medical Corps (Retired)

Macedonia, like other Balkan states, has had a turbulent history. Under Philip, it assumed control of the Hellenic states, and under his greater son, Alexander, it conquered the whole of the then known world. Dissensions, however, were rife, as they have been even up to modern times. Over that period, Macedonia has been periodically devastated by wars, and has been ruled and despoiled successively by Roman, Slav, Bulgur, Turk and Greek. History has left its mark on a population which racially speaking is one of the most mixed in Europe.

Macedonia has been the most malarial region in the world, and this feature, added to the periodic devastations, inevitably produced an un-progressive population quite unable to maintain its independence among the other racial entities by which it is surrounded. Some authorities attribute the decline and fall of ancient Hellenic ascendancy to the ravages of malaria. A Medical Officer, spending some time among these people, and noting, at the same time, that, each year, there were more admissions to British Army Hospitals for malaria, than personnel in the British Salonica Force, is inclined to believe it. Modern sanitation, as we know it, was almost non-existent in Macedonia, and indeed, it must be admitted, that, up to the time of the 1914-1918 Great War, the setting up of efficient anti-malarial measures in this area would be a matter of extreme difficulty.

However, since the region now seems to be more or less firmly under the aegis of modern Greece, with which it has, racially and historically, considerable affinity, and since Greece appears to be rapidly assuming its place as a progressive modern nation, the future for Macedonia, as to political organization and the application of modern public health measures, appears to be much brighter. The military operations of the Allied Forces, during the 1914-1918 war, in this area, while not as consistently active as were those on the western front, had a tremendous value in barring the Central Powers from the Eastern Mediterranean, even though their submarines infested the sea itself, and in preventing Greece from throwing in its lot with them. As events proved, the initial break-up of the Central Powers came on the Salonica front six weeks before the final armistice on the Western front.

The writer², a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, who had already had service in Egypt, with a base unit of the Gallipoli forces, and service in England while recovering from a serious illness contracted in Egypt, was boarded fit for overseas service in July 1917. In August I received War Office orders to proceed to Salonika, to join the British Salonica Force. I was pleased to find there, three old college friends, two of them classmates and all on their way to Salonika. All three, like myself, had taken commissions in the Royal Army Medical Corps since the Canadian Army, at that time, needed so few extra medical officers. During the war 418 young Canadian physicians served with the R.A.M.C.

After a somewhat turbulent channel crossing, we arrivedat Cherbourg, an old fashioned French seaport town, with streets were still paved with cobblestones. We marched through the town and to an old chateau on the outskirts, which with its grounds, had been utilized for the first of a series of four rest camps on the overland route from Cherbourg to Taranto in southern Italy. This route, across France, through the Alps and down the Adriatic coast of Italy to Taranto had recently been established on account of the steadily increasing threat of enemy submarines in the Mediterranean. The old chateau and its grounds had been turned into reasonably comfortable accommodation and we spent two days there.

We then embarked on a French troop train and proceeded across France, south of Paris and in the direction of the city of Lyons (now Lyon). Near Lyons, at a small French village, St. Germaine, we paused at the second rest camp for a day, which as yet, had not been completed. Leaving St. Germaine camp the next day we approached the Alps and, on the second day, passed through the Mont Cenis tunnel, emerging in Italy at a small town named Modane. We entered the tunnel in August weather, dressed in light drill clothing. When we emerged high in the Alps, everything was covered with snow and icicles hung from the rocks. We shivered in our light summer clothing. However, a few hours later the train had descended to the lower levels of the north of Italy, and as we passed through Turin and Milan, the summer heat returned greater than ever.

Our next rest camp was located in a lovely little Italian town, Faenza, which even then enjoyed a world-wide reputation for the production of beautiful ceramics. Here we were welcomed by a snappy little major of the Indian Army, dressed in jodhpurs and carrying a riding crop. We were instructed, in his clipped words, as to what we could and could not do, while in camp. To me he seemed the acme of efficiency, and the general air of discipline and efficiency about the camp bore out this impression. Officer’s accommodation was not yet ready and we were assigned to a small but excellent little hotel, the Albergo Vittoria, where we remained for two very pleasant days.

We then travelled by train down the east side of Italy, in sight of the Adriatic for a good part of the way, crossed over through Bari to Taranto at the foot of Italy, and arrived at the last rest camp of the route near Taranto. This camp, too, was in the process of construction and organization. The area was dusty, rations were short and the Maconochie (tinned meat and vegetables) had to be stretched with water to make it go round. We spent five days in this camp. On the 3rd day, I was delighted to run across, camped nearby, the rear guard of No. 4 Canadian Hospital on its way back to England from Salonika, commanded by Major C. S. McVicar. This party had ample rations, including a good supply of canned Canadian fruit hand other items, which for us were delicacies. For the remainder of their stay in the rest camp, these four medical officers made nightly visits to Major McVicar and shared in his good food.

At this rest camp, we witnessed the arrival of shiploads of Egyptian labourers bound for the Italian front, and of Annamites, natives of the French colony of Assam,imported as labourers by the French Army. Finally we were pleased to learn, that, in the evening, we were to embark on H. M. S. Aragon, to complete our journey to Salonika. The Aragon had served as Headquarters Ship at the Dardanelles during the operation at Gallipoli. Nasty minded critics were wont to say (unfairly) she went aground there on bottles.³ On her next trip she was torpe­doed and sunk in the Aegean Sea. We sailed in the evening and next morning arrived at the harbour of Candia, capital of Crete, where we spent the day at anchor. Knowing something of the Minoan civilization,⁴ of the Minotaur and of the palace at Knossos, I would have liked to go ashore, but no shore leave was granted. We sailed at dusk, and next morning found ourselves anchored in a bay at the island of Skyros, an island mentioned in the Odyssey as conquered by Achilles. We remained there for the day, sailing in the evening. The next afternoon we arrived outside the harbour of Salonika. The inner harbour was protected by a boom which was opened daily about 4:00 p.m. The ship cruised around for about an hour in full view of the masts and part of the hulk of a ship which had been recently torpedoed outside the harbour. My feeling of relief when we were admitted to the inner harbour can better be imagined than described.

In spite of the fact that the city of Salonika had, since we left England, been ravaged by one of its periodic devastating fires, accentuated by the inflammable character of so many of the buildings and the almost total absence of fire protection the view from the harbour is an impressive one. The white roofs of the houses and the numerous white minarets of mosques strike the eye. The original city was surrounded by a wall, much of which is still in good condition and can be seen coming down to the bay on the eastern side. It is easily outlined as one gazes upon this “Pearl of the Aegean”, lying comfortably on the mountainside as it slopes down toward the harbour. Some miles back of the city rises Mount Hortiach, with an altitude of some 2000 ft. and near it are located a number of British military hospitals. In the foreground is a long stretch of quay, sections of which have been allotted to the various allied forces. The quay and the harbour are dotted with the small sailing boats of the Greek Islanders, who here find a ready market for their wine, fruits, vegetables and fish. To the right where the old city wall approaches the bay, one sees one of the outstanding features of the city, the White Tower, or as the French term it, ”La Tour Blanche”. Beyond the White Tower and to the right, following along the bay shore, is a more or less modern extension of the city which ends in a suburb called Kalamaria, and in this area are located a number of British hospitals. To the left of the city, one sees the valley of the Vardar River and its marshes.

Macedonia

Upon disembarkation, the Medical Officers were detailed to the various British hospitals. The writer was assigned to the No. 52 General Hospital at Kalamaria. As I travelled through the cobblestoned streets of the city in the hospital’s Model ‘T’ truck, I learned that the hutments of No. 52 were those recently vacated by the No. 4 Canadian General Hospital. The walls of the room to which I was assigned, carried the signatures of a number of the personnel of the hospital, among them that of Doctor Gordon Cameron, later a graduate in medicine of the university. I was also much interested in the stage on the grounds, modelled on ancient Greek lines, with an open air amphitheatre. I had no doubt that my No. 4 Canadian General Hospital colleagues had here presented many of the masterpieces of Euripides and of Aristophanes, for the edification of patients and staff.

Here I renewed acquaintance with Colonel C. M. Wenyon of the London School of Tropical Medicine, then the leading protozoologist in the English-speaking world. After the war Wenyon became Director of the Wellcome Bureau of Tropical Research in London. I had met Colonel Wenyon while in Egypt in 1916, while attending a short course on protozoology,⁵ given by him in one of the British military hospitals in Alexandria to new coming pathologists to the Middle East, for the diagnosis of amoeba histolytica and its cysts, the cause of some of the cases of dysentery among British troops in Egypt and elsewhere in eastern theatres of war. He had been appointed Consulting Protozoologist to the British Salonica Force.

Also I met Colonel L. S. Dudgeon, the Consulting Bacteriologist to the British Salonica Force, who was in peace time Professor of Pathology at St. Thomas’s Hospital Medical School in London. I had met Colonel Dudgeon in Egypt in 1916 while serving as Medical Officer at a Convalescent Camp at Port Said, set up to handle casualties of the Gallipoli campaign, then in progress. With the end of that campaign the camp was closed and I was transferred to Cairo. While I was at Port Said, all medical units in the Near and Middle East had been inspected by a commission of leading experts in tropical medicine, consisting of Colonel Andrew Balfour of the Royal Army Medical College, Colonel Ledingham, then director of the Lister Institute in London, and Colonel L. S. Dudgeon of St. Thomas’ Hospital in London. As a result of their report, Colonel Ledingham was appointed Consulting Bacteriologist for the Mesopotamia area, while Colonel Dudgeon was appointed Consulting Bacteriologist for the British Salonica Force. Colonel Dudgeon knew that I had had some training and experience in pathology and bacteriology and I was detailed to him as a bacteriologist. He assigned me to No. 52 General Hospital as assistant bacteriologist.

In charge of the laboratory at that time was Major Charles Singer, R.A.M.C. of Oxford University, author at that time and since of many authoritative works on the history of medicine. He was keenly interested in the ancient history and archaeology of the Salonika area, and he and I made visits in our spare hours to the ruins of the old Basilica of St. Demetrius, virtually destroyed by the recent fire. The clearing up of the ruins revealed some fantastically beautiful mosaics on walls and floors. This church, named for the patron saint of Thessalonika, had been erected as a Christian church in the 5^th century A.D. It had been converted to a mosque when in the 16^th century the Turks took over Salonika, and a minaret had been added. All Christian symbols, at that time, had been removed, plastered over or otherwise concealed, and the mosaics on remaining walls and floors came to light after the fire of 1917. Major Singer made visits to many monasteries in the area, including those at Mount Athos, some fifty miles away, where there was a wealth of ancient documents.

During my sojourn at No. 52 General Hospital I heard many complimentary things about the work of its predecessor, the No. 4 Canadian Hospital. The late Professor J. J. McKenzie was very popular, and Major (afterwards Professor) Duncan Graham’s paper on the bacteriology of bacillary dysentery came in for high praise. Colonel Dudgeon considered it the best he had seen on the subject. The excellence of the equipment, staff and work of the hospital made for it an enviable reputation.

The Consulting Physician to the British Salonica Force Medical Services was Colonel James Purves-Stewart of London (afterwards Sir James). During the succeeding weeks, he organized a course of lectures on tropical medicine with special stress on dysentery and malaria for the newly arrived medical officers and any others who cared to attend. He and Colonel Wenyon became noted for the quality of the bridge they played, though they doubtless later⁶ became excellent players. I attended a meeting of a newly formed Salonica Medical Society, whose membership included the medical officers of the area, and heard interesting presentations on the tropical diseases common in Macedonia.

After a month at No. 52 General Hospital, I received orders to report to No. 26 Mobile Bacteriological Laboratory as assistant bacteriologist. It was sited with a Casualty Clearing Station near the Greek village of Lahana about 2 miles back of the Struma Front. I left No. 52 by returning motor ambulance on October 1^st at 4:00 one morning. We breakfasted at an outpost of the Royal Engineers about half-way, and proceeded the rest of the way in a T model Ford van from the Casualty Clearing Station, arriving at the No. 26 Mobile Laboratory about the middle of the forenoon, a few miles beyond Kilo 70 on the Seres Road. Here I was to spend five busy and interesting months.⁷

The Seres Road followed the course of an old Roman road north-east from Salonika to the town of Seres, built in the 3^rd century A.D. Parts of it were still in passable shape. It had been metalled ⁸ by the Allies, and as far as Kilo 70, served as the main line of communication with the Struma Front. It was subjected to a heavy volume of traffic but stood up remarkably well, thanks to the ministrations of the Royal Engineers and native labour parties. For part of the way it was supplemented by a narrow gauge railway (called a Decauville railway) upon which Ford cars adapted to travel on rails pulled trains of small cars behind them.

The officer commanding the laboratory was Major A. L. Urquhart R.A.M.C., a regular officer who had gone to Europe with the “old contemptibles” at the outbreak of war. He was a very fine gentleman, with a great sense of humour, and his tales of the retreat from Mons were thrilling. Having had training in pathology at the Royal Army Medical College, he was in 1916 transferred to the British Salonica Force, and placed in charge of No. 26 laboratory. After the war, he retired from the R.A.M.C. spent a year in pathology with Professor Dudgeon and then received the appointment of Professor of Pathology at the Egyptian Kesr-el-Aine Medical School at Cairo, at about the same time that Sir Sydney Smith was taking up his forensic medical work for the Egyptian government. Association with Major Urquhart made the work and the activities of the laboratory very pleasant and very profitable indeed for a young pathologist and bacteriologist.

The work in the laboratory was largely concerned with bacteriology, serology, protozoology and parasitology. The laboratory diagnosis of malaria and dysentery accounted for 90% of the work. Specimens for examination were delivered from the medical units in the area, by ambulance, by motorcycle runner, and by the lab’s own Ford truck. Reports were returned by the same means, by Despatch Rider Letter Service (D.R.L.S.) which used motorcycles, or by army telegraph when available. On occasion, I did autopsies on problem cases. I had one on an Army Service Corps driver who, caught in the hills in the dark, closed up the truck with tarpaulins, lit a charcoal brazier, and lapsed into permanent sleep. On another occasion, a soldier who had had repeated attacks of malaria fell from a truck and ruptured his greatly enlarged malarial spleen.

In January, Major Urquhart was transferred to the Central British Army Laboratory in Salonika as Officer Commanding, and he was succeeded at No. 26 Laboratory by Major R. R. Elworthy, in peace time, pathologist to the West London Hospital. Major Elworthy was a keen experienced pathologist and bacteriologist who before the war had demonstrated that a case of anthrax, a cattle disease which can infect human beings, had been caused by the bristles of a shaving brush which had not been properly sterilized. They had several cases of a disease called relapsing fever and Major Elworthy diag­nosed a case of Balantidiosis ⁹ and intestinal diseases caused by a rare type of parasite. Attached to the laboratory at that time was Capt. T. S. Hale, R.A.M.C., in peace time Assistant Professor of Physiology at Cambridge University and later Master of Emmanuel College there. He was presently engaged in a study of the blood sugar changes in the blood of malaria patients using the then new blood chemistry technique for that purpose.

The laboratory was housed in a large oblong tent ¹⁰ with a window set in the south wall, before which I and my colleague, Captain Hale worked. Looking out of the window, we could, on any clear day, see Mount Olympus in the distance (about 100 miles) with its snow-covered top. I could not help reflecting that the Olympian gods had chosen a rather chilly spot for a residence, and had placed a rather high premium on inaccessibility.

The routine daily examination of dozens of slides for malaria and of dozens of specimens for dysentery was of work was relieved by occasional trips to units on the Struma front, and by periodic visits from enemy aircraft to a Royal Flying Corps station. Occasionally bombs would drop on the C.S.S. compound, and on those occasions when the siren sounded we had recourse to an underground air raid shelter with a rather narrow entrance. Since Hale and I each weighed in the neighbour­hood of 200 lbs, it was not possible for both to enter at once, much as we occasionally had the urge to do so.

Among the interesting features of the countryside was the profuse crop of mushrooms, fostered in a soil which had been grazing land probably since the times of Alexander the Great. Up to the time of our arrival at Lahana, no use had been made of these delicacies. Securing a frying pan, a primus stove and a tin of Danish butter from the canteen, I was able to demonstrate by biological experimentation upon myself that they were not only edible and harmless, but in addition a very succulent delicacy, and as long as the fine weather lasted we enjoyed them. Colonel Wenyon and Colonel Dudgeon from the base occasionally spent a week end with them, and as my bridge was less than mediocre, I was usually assigned the duty of providing the bridge party with a mushroom supper in the course of the evening. The Lahana mushroom parties became widely known on the Struma Front.¹¹

Hale and I cultivated the acquaintance of the local Orthodox Greek priest of the village (the Pappas) and from him we learned much about the manners and customs of the native population. We were once invited to attend a wedding and this turned out to be a very festive affair, with plenty of wine, food, folk singing and dancing. The priest’s church, like many others, had once served as a Turkish mosque and had had a minaret added, and we were accorded the privilege of mounting the minaret. Hale had a flair for collecting Ikons and sent many to his home in Cambridge.

Winter came on in December with much fog and with considerable snow. Christmas was as festive as could be made under the circumstances. Turkeys had been secured from some of the natives and on the whole it was quite a cheery occasion, much of the cheer being provided by the Expe­ditionary Force Canteen in Salonika. About the end of January, Captain Hale was transferred to the Central Laboratory at the base, and shortly after, Major Urquhart followed him as Officer Commanding the Central Laboratory. He was succeeded by Major R. R. Elworthy who in peacetime was pathologist to the West London Hospital at Hammersmith. He was somewhat ascetic in type, and had little respect for colonials or for Americans, who had come into the war that spring. His strictures on Americans were also criticisms of colonials in general. On one occasion when he was particularly critical of Americans, I undertook to defend them as usual. I said to him, “I think you are very unfair to Americans; the United States is as yet but 150 years old, and one cannot expect them to have accomplished the things it took you people 1000 years to accomplish.” His answer was unexpected and somewhat devastating. “Of course I don’t,” he replied, “but to hear them talk one would think they had done it.” However we got along fairly well for the two months he was with us.

I had one week-end leave to Salonika. As we crossed the Llangaza Plain on the way down, I had the thrill of seeing more thousands of grey wild geese than one would ever have believed possible. Each spring they came down in their millions from Russia to feed upon the Balkan plains. They rose in clouds as the truck crossed the plain, settling down behind them. They kept out of gunshot range however, and it was almost impossible to get near enough to shoot one. Their numbers exceeded anything I could have imagined had I not seen them.

On this leave I was quartered at the No. 52 General hospital and in the mess one evening, I met Sir Ronald Ross of malaria fame, who had recently arrived from England over the route by which we had come in August. Sir Ronald’s ship however, had been torpedoed in the Aegean Sea, not far out from Salonika but it was beached, and all on board rescued, completing the journey by rail. Sir Ronald regaled the mess with a very colourful description of his experience.

In February I received orders to report to the Officer Commanding No. 27 Mobile Bacteriological Laboratory, located just back of the Doiran front at a little village called Janis,¹² near which there was also a Casualty Clearing Station. The O. C., Major Warnick, R.A.M.C., was going on leave to Athens, leaving me in charge until his return. To reach Janes we had to return by the Seres road to “Piccadilly Circus” on the outskirts of Salonika and then take the Monastir road up to Janes which was a few miles back of the Doiran front.

Major Warnick was a genial Irishman on his return from leave. I remained as assistant until the end of February. The work in thelaboratory was of a type similar to that at Lahana, but the volume was not as great. Here we were less subject to enemy air-raids, but we could hear the booming of the artillery and, at night see the glare of the Very lights. Daily we could watch the antiaircraft guns firing at enemy planes when they came near the area. My daily strolls in the countryside sometimes brought me in sight of the ruins of an ancient castle, said to have been built by the Saladin as a country villa. The Doiran front, was, ordinarily, not quite so active as the Struma front, but the last great push in September, 1918, sounded the knell of Bulgaria as a combatant, and of the Central Powers, who capitulated six weeks later.

To maintain morale, each of the divisions – the 10^th, 26^th, 27^th and 28^th – organized a dramatic company. The improvised theatres were generally within a mile or so of the front. One of these theatres was between Janis and the front, and I went one night and saw a splendid show, with players from the active service men of the division, and with appointments of a London theatre as far as they could be improvised. It was interesting to go out during the intermission and hear the artillery in action on the front line. This theatre was eventually broken up by a long distance shell which landed on it, fortunately when it was empty and theatrical activities on that front came to an end. Later while in Salonika, I went to see an excellent production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Mikado” at one of these theatres back of the Struma front.

About the end of February, I received orders to report for duty to the Central B.S.F. Laboratory in Salonika, in charge of my old Lahana friend, Major Urquhart. This laboratory served the British Salonica Force in fields of laboratory activity not undertaken by the hospital laboratories, and as well, the other allied forces when they requested it. The Central Laboratory had been organized in 1916, and its first Officer Commanding was a Major Twart, R.A.M.C., then well known as an associate of D’Herelle in the work connected with the discovery of bacteriophage. At this time the Central Laboratory was under the direction of another old friend of Lahana days, Major A. L. Urquhart. I was to succeed Captain Wilkin R.A.M.C. as bacteriologist and serologist, for he was to take up similar duties with one of the larger hospitals nearer the front. The Central Laboratory and its staff were under the general direction of the consulting pathologist, Colonel Dudgeon, and under the immediate direction of Major Urquhart. Captain Ferrie was the chemist. Captain John Ramsbottom, in peace time mycologist to the Natural History Section of the British Museum, was the protozoologist and paracytologist. Captain Hale, of Lahana days, joined them as a research associate. They had several good technicians in charge of a sergeant, who was, in peace time with one of the London hospitals. The staff all told numbered 10, and the officers’ mess had a strength of 6. The laboratory was housed in a sort of apartment house near the centre of the city. The basement was used for a laboratory, the first floor for messing and the second floor for sleeping quarters, and on the third floor, a small unit of the Royal Engineers for sleeping quarters. It had the advantage of electricity, running water, and, for most of the time a gas supply.

My predecessor, Captain Wilkin, R.A.M.C. had been with the laboratory for about a year. During this time he occasionally had a call to render laboratory service for the household of King Peter of Serbia, then domiciled in the city not farfrom the laboratory. On one occasion King Peter, who was asthmatic, sent over to the laboratory, a case of “jujubes” which had regularly come from a drug house in Paris, and which consisted of small medicinal cubes usually of a regular cubical shape. This shipment had come by way of a French ship which had been torpedoed but not sunk, and the jujubes had suffered from the water so as to distort their cubical shape. The King refused to use them until they had been restored to their original shape and Captain Wilkin undertook the restoration. Shortly thereafter, King Peter, in gratitude no doubt for many services rendered, conferred on him a decoration, the White Eagle of Serbia. But his friends in the British Salonica Force insisted that he had won his “White Eagle” as a reward for “squaring King Peter’s jujubes.”

The laboratory was a very pleasant place to work, and the personnel were congenial. The work covered some pathology and histology, a good deal of bacteriology and serology, and thousands of malarial blood slides. I got an occasional trip up to the medical units on the two fronts, to consult on some case of unusual difficulty. I was shortly nick-named “the bloody boy” being the junior, and was elected mess secretary. This entailed the duty, of drawing rations, solid and liquid, and searching through the town for any delicacies, or food accessories, not yet covered by the rations. Once a week the mess had an issue of Australian rabbit. Aside from rations, the choice of food materials was limited for the civil importation of food from abroad was almost non-existent. It was a difficult job to provide the mess with much variety of diet. Fish could always be obtained, and if the members had liked squids (octopus) they were available. The native Thessalonians seemed to like them, to judge by the numbers one could see on day on streets or trains.

The work in the laboratory was varied and interesting. It served the British Army and, on occasion rendered laboratory service to the Serbian and French Armies. We did a good deal of bacteriology, Widal serum tests for the various types of dysentery, and for typhoid and paratyphoid fevers. We carried out about 75 Wassermann tests a week for syphilis, as long as the supply of guinea pigs could be maintained. These were obtained from Egypt about once a month, but before the end of the war, the supply of guinea pigs failed, and the lab had to give up the test. We studied atypical strains of the dysentery bacillus, and isolated a strain of Bacillus Paratyphosus which they called Paratyphoid C. it was my part of the work, to make a quadruple vaccine incorporating the four organisms (T.A.B.C.) and to list the antibody response of the human body to the vaccine. I needed volunteers. Colonel Dudgeon consulted the Officer Commanding an internment camp for Russian prisoner-of-war (after their revolution) and a dozen volunteers were secured. These were inoculated with 3 doses of the T.A.B.C. vaccine a week apart, and samples of blood for testing were secured 3 weeks later. Widal serum tests showed that there was a fair immune response to the Paratyphoid C. part of the vaccine. I then prepared a supply of the quadruple vaccine to have on hand in case it should be needed.

We had for diagnosis one case of anthrax, a cattle disease which sometimes infects the human being. My colleague, Major Elworthy at Lahana, had before the war in London, shown that a case occurring there had come from a shaving brush, the bristles of which, had not been properly sterilized, and carried the organism. We also had one case of Glanders, a disease of horses, which may infect the human being. A member of the veterinary corps inoculating donkeys which had been secured for transport purposes with a live glanders vaccine when he accidentally inoculated himself. Prompt surgical measures save his life, but I was instructed to prepare a supply of glanders vaccine in case it should be needed. We did not have a case of plague but I was always on the lookout for it. However I had the task of making cultures for plague on the bodies of all rats found dead in the harbour, and these were always unwelcome visitors at the laboratory.

The final push on the Doiran, and later on the Struma front, came in September and the British hospitals in the Kalamaria and Hortiach areas were crowded with wounded. At the same time, the wave of the world wide influenza epidemic struck¹³ Armistice with a cessation of hostilities with Bulgaria came on September 30^th. This did not lessen the congestion in the hospitals for soldiers by the hundreds had to be brought down from the fronts, suffering from influenza. The mortality rate was very high. I was allotted the task of making a bacteriological study of lungs from diseased influenza patients at No. 52 General Hospital, who came to autopsy in order to determine the relative parts played by the influenza bacillus and by the streptococcus. Appropriate media for the growth of these organisms was prepared and until the final armistice on November 11^th, 1918 I worked on this problem. After Armistice Day, however, enthusiasm for research waned somewhat for many of them began to think of home. Cables having been received during the late summer enquiring when the City Pathologist of Hamilton could be released. The work I had done, however, tended to show that Bacillus Influenzae could be cultured from but a few of the cases, but that a strain of Streptococcus Hemolyticus could be isolated in practically all cases. The killer seemed to be the Streptococcus.¹⁴

Life in Salonika was very colourful. The presence of British, Indian, French, Italian and Russian troops (interned after the revolution), gave an extremely cosmopolitan air to the city. The Russian detachment was taken in charge by the French, who rationed them and assigned duties to them. During the summer, Saturday afternoon concerts were given by the Royal Italian Military Band, which rendered selections from grand opera in excellent style. The French Army maintained a “Cercle Militaire” or Officers’ Club, which extended its privileges to British and other allied officers, which served excellent wines, meals and “aperitifs” without political repercussions from Paris. It was near the end of the war when the British Army established a similar centre in a commandeered residence of a Turkish Pasha who had some time earlier prudently retired to Constantinople, discretion proving to be the better part of valour, and it was officially named the British Officers’ Rest House. Salonika had a Greek garrison of sorts consisting of a detachment of Euzones, or as the troops called them “Greek Highlanders”. Their costume was almost as picturesque as that of the Scottish Highlanders. French Colonial troops from Africa lent another hue to the already variegated military picture.

The civil population was equally colourful. There had been, in Salonika a Jewish colony for nearly 400 years. Toward the end of the fifteenth century, a large number of Spanish Jews, driven out of Spain by persecution, made their homes here and became a prominent factor in the business life of the city. Greeks made up the greater part of the population, but there were a goodly number of Turks and many Serbian refugees. Moslem, Orthodox Greek, Christian and Jew, distinguished largely by their various national costumes, mingled freely.

The small shopkeepers set their prices according to what they thought the customer could pay. The only answer to protests was “C’est la guerre”. Although the money of many European, Asiatic and African countries was in circulation, the Greek drachma was the official standard of currency. The production of tobacco and cigarettes was an important industry for the best tobacco in the world was grown around the town of Cavalla, some fifty miles to the east of the city. Floca’s Restaurant, which was to Salonika what Groppi’s was to Cairo or the Trocadero to London, was destroyed during the fire, but was reopened early in 1918. Here one could secure a very good meal at a reasonable price. The White Tower Restaurant was also well known. When spring lamb produced in Macedonia was in season, a meal in one of these restaurants seemed to me to be the finest food I had ever tasted. Even before the war the excellence of the spring lamb was well known. Macedonian peasants had been producing it since the days of Alexander the Great. At the local Opera House, I occasionally would hear grand opera rendered in Greek by an Athens opera company and though I couldn’t follow the words, I enjoyed the music. Two billboards were prominent reminders of Canada. The Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada occupied one, under­taking to assure the future of the Thessalonians, and, on the other, Hiram Walker and Sons offered Canadian Club as an aid to their enjoyment of the present.

The most famous street of the city was the “Via Ignatia”, or as the French call it, the Rue du Vardar, a somewhat narrow street paved with cobble-stones. It ran across the city from the east to the west and had formed part of a Roman road constructed from Byzantium to Durazzo as a line of communication between Rome and Byzantium. Near the eastern end of the Via Ignatia is a stone arch gateway, the Arch of Galerius, erected by that Roman Emperor and inscribed with records of his exploits. At its western end, there was, originally a stone arch gate, erected in the first century AD, but this was demolished in 1867 to repair the city’s wall. Its site is now occupied by a plaza into which poured the traffic from both fronts, and the ‘Tommies’ called this “Piccadilly Circus”, the most traffic congested area of the city. A little beyond Piccadilly Circus, on the Monastir road was the Expeditionary Force Canteen, from which it was Bill’s duty as mess secretary to secure rations.

Along the waterfront ran the only wide avenue of the city, the Rue Reine Olga. It faced directly on the harbour and before the fire, was lined by modern business buildings. The main cross-town street was the Rue Venizelos on which were located, as I remembered, Stein’s Department Store, Floca’s Restaurant and the remains of the Orosdi-Back large general store. The “Tour Blanche” dates from the days of Venetian rule in the 15^th century, and it is the most striking object in the city. It was originally surrounded by ramparts, which were destroyed during the later years of Turkish domination. In close proximity are the White Tower gardens, the White Tower restaurant, and the White Tower music hall. A competing music hall, the “Skating Rink” was a block away across the street. Music halls in the east exist primarily for the sale of liquid and other refreshments. The artistes attract patrons by their presence rather than by their art. Their chief function is to mingle with the patrons and to encourage the sale of liquid refreshments at scandalously high prices. The “Tour Blanche” Music Hall was a rendezvous for soldiers and civilians of many nationalities, and on the night of Sept. 30th, 1918, when the armistice with Bulgaria was announced, was the scene of a wild celebration.

Most of the churches of the city had alternately served as Christian churches and under Turkish domination, as mosques. The Church of St. George was of circular form but the Turks had added a minaret. Excavations in the neighbourhood of the church brought to light an altar, thought to be the one from which St. Paul preached to the Thessalonians. The Church of St. Demetrius, built as a Christian church about the 3^rd century A.D., was the most perfect form of the basilica known. It too had a minaret added by the Turks. It was named after the patron saint of Salonika, and was almost totally destroyed by the 1917 fire. The mural and floor mosaics were excellent, and the clearing up of the ruins after the fire revealed others of equal excellence which had been obscured at the time of its conversion to a mosque.

The surrounding country was full of points of interest. Back of the city, Mount Hortiach rises to 2000 feet above the sea, on top of which was an old Roman reservoir which fed water to the city through a stone aqueduct. Now, probably 17 centuries after they were built they still deliver fresh water to the city. A small village to the east, used as a camp for Serbian refugees, is built on the site of some Roman baths, which took advantage of thewarm springs in the neighbourhood, the original city derived its name Therma from the presence of these springs. I and my colleague John Ramsbottom used to take the laboratory Model T. Ford on Sunday afternoons and picnic in these outlying places. In the neighbourhood were numerous monasteries, examples of which were scattered all over Macedonia, the most important ones being at Mount Athos about 50 miles away. We used to pass through a small village, thirty five miles to the west, which was on the site of the ancient Pella, the capital of Alexander the Great. Nothing now remains but some tumbling ruins and a simple fountain, like many others in Macedonia, a land of springs, placed there by the Turks to water the horses of their cavalry and the sheep of the shepherds from whom came the tribute gathered annually. “Sic transit Gloria mundi.”

The armistice with Bulgaria came on Sept. 30^th 1918, but the general armistice on Nov. 11^th 1918, came six weeks later. All the allied troops had an air of expectancy and all were dreaming of being soon on the way home. Yet the work still had to be carried on for now the hospitals were overflowing with influenza casualties who were coming down in numbers from both fronts, and the research problems continued in the study of the bacteriology of the lungs of patients dead of the disease. A group of British Officers including myself, arranged with a French officer, who had been a teacher of English at the Sorbonne in Paris to give an hour lesson in French to us three times a week. These classes continued until the afternoon of November 11^th when the news of the armistice reached us in class at Salonika. The teacher with Gallic emotion exclaimed, “Mes amis, la guerre est finie! L’ecole est aussi finie.” We thanked him and, like him, turned our attention to the matter of an early discharge.

Naturally everyone wanted to get home and just as naturally it was impossible to let everyone go. The thousands of British troops in Macedonia were going to have to be on duty for weeks or months, and we had to have medical services particularly in view of the raging influenza epidemic. However, I had been sufficiently long on service without leave, to apply for it and with the backing of Colonel Dudgeon, I applied to G.H.Q. for leave to “Blighty” and, after an expected interval it was granted.

By the end of November, evacuation of British troops was under way via the now well established overland route by ship and rail across Europe. I paid my farewell to old Thessalonica on November 27^th, and with a number of other medical officers embarked on a troop train leaving that day. the route by rail took us southward near the Aegean Sea coast, across the plains of Thessaly, through the Vale of Tempe, past the foot of Mount Olympus, near to the famed pass of Thermopylae and to a Grecian village called Brolo on the hither side of the Parnassus range of mountains. There we spent a couple of days in a well-organized tent rest camp and one morning set out by truck up and over the Parnassus range and down to another small Greek village on the Gulf of Corinth called Itea. Here in another well-organized British rest camp, we were to spend the next six days, awaiting the arrival of naval transport to take them across the Adriatic to Taranto in Italy.

The camp at Itea was well organized and was reasonably comfortable. It was two miles from the village and we would walk down to the village in the afternoons. The site of the far famed Oracle of Delphi was some six miles away across a valley and we learned in the village, that a French outpost here had a detachment at the village near Delphi and that a truck delivered mail and rations there every 3^rd day. So four of us journeyed to Itea one afternoon, and called on the French Headquarters with the idea of getting a ride to Delphi with the French truck. Since I had a little more knowledge of French than the others, I was delegated to make the request. We entered a large building which had evidently been a fine residence and was told by the sentry that the office was on the second floor, up a wide stairway. We proceeded up the stairway and at the landing met a dapper young French officer. Drawing on my reserve of French expressions I asked him if we might have a ride to Delphi and back with the “camion a poste”. He smiled and replied in perfect English, “Gentlemen, you are too late. The post went yesterday and will not go again for 3 days.” We all laughed and, in conversation with him learned that he had before the war, spent 10 years in the United States.

The next day, although the weather was dull, the four of us decided to walk the six miles across the valley to see the Oracle. We started directly after lunch, andthe weather was cloudy and threatening rain. Most of the way led across a large olive orchard. Due to the war and the influenza epidemic the olives had not been picked and were ripe on the trees. I tasted one but didn’t like it for it was extremely bitter. After a couple of hours we reached the other side of the valley and stopped for a few minutes at a small tavern and had coffee and cognac. The proprietor told us that it was still two miles further to the Oracle and that the weather was darkening and looked like rain. We decided not to go further but to retrace our steps before the rain should come. It was dark when we got back to the rest camp, having failed to visit one of the most historic spots in Greece.

We spent a couple more days at the rest camp and finally got orders to embark next morning on H.M.S. Bermudian which was to take them out of the Gulf of Corinth and across the Adriatic to a rest camp at Taranto. The Bermudian had been built for the New York – Bermuda passage. She was somewhat narrow for her height and when we got out into the Adriatic, she tossed about considerably in the stormy sea, so that many were seasick. However in about 24 hours we arrived at the Port of Taranto and were taken by lorry to the rest camp which was now completed and much larger than when I was there in August 1917. It was congested with troops returning homeward and a battalion of West Indian coloured troops was on the point of mutiny, at the delays in forwarding them on their journey. The night was tense, but next day the Indians were entrained and the camp assumed a more peaceful atmosphere. After two days another troop train arrived and I and another medical officer were detailed to accompany it as medical officers. We travelled up the Adriatic side of Italy to the rest camp at Faenza where we spent two days. We then proceeded across the north of Italy through Milan and Turin, again through the Mont Cenis tunnel through the Alps and down into the plains of France, spending another day at the rest camp near Lyons. The next day we arrived at Cherbourg and boarded a channel steamer which landed them at Southampton. The crossing was a rough one and again there was considerable sea sickness. We arrived at Waterloo Station in London on Christmas Eve, 1918, and went to the Strand Palace Hotel for the night.

Christmas day in London was as usual merry but not for me. I knew nobody in London and there was no time to contact friends in other parts of England. However, it passed, and next day I transferred to the Thackeray Hotel near the British Museum. There I met an old Hamilton friend, Captain Binkley also on his way home to Canada, and before we got orders for embarkation, he was to spend a month at the Thackeray.

After a couple of weeks, Binkley and I got a little tired of London and decided to register for a period at lady Allen’s home in Devon which had been turned into a rest home for Canadian officers on leave. We arrived just before the dinner hour and after some aperitifs, sat down to dinner. In the middle of dinner, an orderly brought me a telegram from the War Office instructing me to report next day to the transport office in Winchester in connection with arrangements for embarkation and return to Canada. So I packed up, took the night train back to London, and next day reported at Winchester. I was then instructed to be in Liverpool the next day to embark on H.M.S. Grampian for the trip to St. John, New Brunswick. I went to Liverpool the next morning and in the afternoon embarked on the Grampian for the trip home, after nearly 4 years of service abroad.

The End of the Presentation

Bill returned from the Great War much older and wiser than he had been four years before. He was 34 years old in 1919, probably a decade older than many of his peers emerging from medical school to begin practice. This was the fate of many who had had to work to earn money for medical school and it was the fate of anyone when necessary war service intervenes at critical points in one’s training. But this worked to his advantage in the new role he was to assume at the Hamilton General Hospital. Even though he had only four months of training in pathology and bacteriology at Johns Hopkins, his war service added a further three years of training and valuable experience under much more adverse conditions. He was now well suited to the demanding role he was to assume.

1 Biographer’s Note: The original address is typed and is a separate document tucked into the file containing drafts of the biography. It is dated 1928 and appears to have been delivered in Hamilton but the venue is not stated. The last few pages are missing from this original typewritten document but were completed from subsequent drafts which were written sometime later. It was obviously WJD’s intention that this would form part of his autobiography.

2 The author of this part, WJD used very inconsistent references to himself – sometimes in the first person singular or plural and sometimes in the third person. Because this was originally a speech in which he would have undoubtedly used the first person singular, these have been changed to the first person wherever the sense required.

3 The meaning of this is unclear. The handwriting could be read as ‘battles’ but careful observation of other ‘a’s and ‘o’s suggests that this reading is correct. The word ‘bottles’ could have referred to the drinking habits of the crew.

4 Bill had a great interest in history, culture and old civilizations that will become more apparent later.

5 Notes and a notebook that Bill used during those lectures are preserved in the archives.

6 The word ‘later’ in this context sounds enigmatic. It could be a facetious suggestion that their dominance of the local bridge scene was because of their rank and authority.

7 Bill had taken many photos in Egypt but only two are preserved from Salonika. One shows a person seated at a laboratory table in a tent. It does not look like Bill but the quality is poor so it could be.

8 The term ‘metalled’ has been used in road-building in Britain for centuries. The Latin word metallum was translated as either ‘mine’ or ‘quarry’ – products from the mine would be metal ores, from the quarries, stone and gravel. “Road metal” referred to the compacted gravel material that was used for road surfaces.

9 Balantiium Coli is the only protozoa with cilia known to parasitize humans. It is common in tropical and semi-tropical regions, especially where public hygiene standards are low. Bill had had very limited experience with these kinds of parasites—rare in Hamilton but well known in tropical medicine.

10 An old unclear photograph shows someone, possibly WJD, working on lab materials in a tent.

11 The lead author recalls his father telling this story about the mushrooms to some friends. Apparently while he was cooking mushrooms he heard someone talking outside the tent in a broad British accent: “Do you know what that bloody colonial is doing? He found some fungus and he is going to eat it!” (personal recollection)

12 Pronounced Yanish.

13

14 From an epidemiological point of view, this is fascinating. The Spanish Flu was a worldwide phenomenon which lasted for several years with a very high morbidity and mortality rate. The virus aetiology of influenza was little known in those days (viruses had only been discovered a few years before) and the cause of influenza was believed to be Bacillus Influenzae – hence its name. This work by WJD was never published but it contributed to the research into viruses that began after the Great War and eventually led to a better understanding of viruses and other intra-cellular causes of disease. WJDs final conclusion was probably correct. The very high death rate may well have been due to secondary infections by streptococcus, rather than to the virus alone.