Credit: UVic Great War Archives
In order to serve in the First World War, Canadian soldiers had to be vaccinated against typhoid and smallpox. And beginning in November 1917, they were also vaccinated for cholera and dysentery. The few soldiers who refused to get the jab were removed. In Britain, these inoculations were voluntary, but experiences in in the Middle East and at Gallipoli proved this policy to be wrong. As McGill University’s George Adani, professor of pathology and a Lieutenant-Colonel, put it: “He [the soldier who spurned the shot] was not allowed to endanger the health of his comrades.”[1]
[1] Tim Cook, Lifesavers and Body Snatchers: Medical Care and the Struggle for Survival in the Great War (New York: Penguin Random House Canada, 2023), p. 26. See also p. 225.
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