Treating malaria in the desert

Heroes Remember

Treating malaria in the desert

Transcript

There was more malaria and hepatitis, there was more of that than wounded of those two. Interviewer: Really? Interviewee: Yes. And some of them died of course because some of the malaria was dreadful. They had terrible chills, they were just wicked with chills and their temperature would go up to 104, 105. And you had to take a drop of blood, prick them for a drop of blood, while that temperature was roaring, put it between two glass slides and put it under a microscope. We had one microscope. And you had to find the, I don't know what we called that, but it was a little like the germ only it wasn't, it was what came from the mosquito that bit them and they had, before you could treat them. But as soon as you found it, wrote it on their card, you whipped in with the treatment for them, the medication.

Description

Ms. Carter describes treating soldiers from Sicily who had contracted malaria. She describes the symptoms of the disease, and the difficulty of diagnosing the strain of the disease with only one microscope to analyze blood samples.

Doris Carter

Doris Carter was born in Birkenhead, England on June 9, 1910. Her family emigrated to Woodstock, New Brunswick and in 1932 she enrolled in Nursing at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. Ms. Carter graduated in 1935, and was recruited to a wartime surgical team, prior to the war's onset. On November 30, 1940 she went overseas with #1 Military Hospital to nurse civilians injured in the bombings of Coventry and Birmingham. Ms. Carter was then sent to the Mediterranean with #5 Military Hospital. She served in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Northwestern Europe. After the war, Ms. Carter pursued a career in Public Health Nursing.

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