Comments on: Mystery apparatus https://bshm.org.uk/mystery-apparatus/ Sat, 10 Sep 2016 15:59:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: bshmchris https://bshm.org.uk/mystery-apparatus/#comment-20 Sat, 10 Sep 2016 15:59:04 +0000 http://bshm.org.uk/?p=1111#comment-20 In reply to Iain Macintyre.

Yes Iain you are correct. I think the Serbian barrel came in various versions but basically steam was used the kill the lice. Wooden barrels were chosen because they were abundant in Serbia. The B+W photo seems to show several barrels linked up to a steam generator by pipes. The museum reconstruction is a smaller version with the steam generated by a heated container below the barrel.

]]> By: Iain Macintyre https://bshm.org.uk/mystery-apparatus/#comment-19 Sat, 10 Sep 2016 15:30:50 +0000 http://bshm.org.uk/?p=1111#comment-19 From your clue of Valjevo, I wonder if these are disinfection barrels or ‘Serbian barrels’ used to disinfect clothes during the great Serbian typhus epidemic of 1914-15. They were used to great effect by the British Military Sanitary Mission to Serbia under Dr William Hunter. Hunter and his unit did a remarkable job in controlling the epidemic very quickly. Later he wrote to The Times on 29th November 1917 a very generous tribute to Elsie Inglis and a unit of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals who had arrived to help. “…No more lovable personality than hers [Elsie Inglis] or more devoted and courageous body of women ever set out to help effectively a people in dire distress, than the Scottish Women’s Hospital.”
(Having writen all that I hope it is the correct answer!)
I’ve come across a recent blog http://www.ebritic.com/?p=346429 which suggests that the Austro-Hungarian forces left a large number of louse infested wounded at Valjevo as a deliberate act of bacterial warfare. Does anyone know if that is credible?

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