What were some of the long term effects of living in the trenches?
When living in the trenches for a while, soldiers would pick up many diseases and mental illnesses. The floors were very wet and muddy while dead bodies filled the areas around them, these conditions brought on many diseases and unwanted creatures. The constant death and firing around the trenches drove many men insane. Even with this constant death and disease and soldier was expected to live in the trenches for months at a time.
Some of the diseases contracted due to the muddy and wet flooring were trench foot, pneumonia, blindness and burns caused by mustard gas and ‘Trench fever’. Trench foot would cause a man’s foot to swell up and go numb, some men would claim to be able to stick a bayonet through their foot and not feel a thing. |
. The constant firing and traumatising deaths would also give a man combat stress reaction (CSR), or as it is more commonly known, shell-shock This mental illness would give some men constant panic, the inability to sleep, speak or walk and often lose all self-control.
Some of the creatures that could be found living in the trenches along with the soldiers were rats, lice and frogs. The rats in this case were not the only source of disease and infection in the trenches. The lice that bred in the dirty clothing of soldiers would cause them to uncontrollably itch. These lice where also the carriers of the previously stated, Trench fever. Trench fever was a disease that had caused fevers that followed severe pains. The lice weren't identified as they culprit of trench fever until 1918. Written By Hayden Watts |