The trench foot – Suffering in wetness and mud - Countermeasures

Countermeasures

In the winter of 1914/1915 the military doctors often had to "amputate the lower leg" of victims with advanced clinical signs, according to the hospital report. The surgeons however were already right when they presumed for their analysis of causes a combination of "immobilized rest position of the feet and wet and tight shoes".

An article of Dr. Dunlap Pearge Penhallow about the "Trench Foot" is from the year 1916. He was in Europe with the American Red Cross and described symptoms and countermeasures from the view of a doctor. His article in "Military Surgery" describes the decisive progress of insight of the time: The "trench foot" here is no longer a "frost problem" but a "wetness problem". How else could it be explained that it also developed with temperatures above the freezing point? This was an insight that led to effective countermeasures.

If diagnosed in time, according to Penhallow, you still could counter the problem with bedrest, pain relief, baths and rubbing with lotions and alcohol.

In order not avoid amputations, he focused on prevention. The boots must not be too tight, according to him, to enable the wearing of two pairs of socks without any problems. Water-repellent treatment of the boots and regularly changing of socks are the most important prophylactic factors for him. Once in 24 hours, the boots should have to be taken off, the feet should be inspected, dried and warmed up by a comrade or medic. Also the trenches itself were something he looked at more closely. Stepping places out of wood, insulations, pumps and straw were supposed to mitigate the wetting and thus fight the cause effectively. The measures were implemented at the Western Front. The "trench foot" did not disappear, but its terrible consequences could be mitigated in the last years of the war.