Today’s Insufficient Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Because of the insufficient diet the prisoners at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were given, they were physically weakened after only a short time at the camp and were thus susceptible to disease. Since they had to live in earthwork dens and self-made lean-tos at the larger camps, camp and cold were further lethal dangers in autumn and winter. In addition, a typhus epidemic broke out in all of the camps in November/December 1941. Because of this epidemic, the Soviet prisoners of Stalag XI B in Fallingbostel were transferred to Bergen-Belsen. The Bergen-Belsen, Oerbke and Wietzendorf camps were quarantined for three months.
Oerbke 1941: Prisoners outside the hospital hut
By the spring of 1942, tens of thousands of prisoners had died. The camp doctors usually entered “general weakness” as the cause of death. Dysentery and typhus made up around 20 percent of the entries.
Culled from: Bergen-Belsen
Arcane Excerpts: Ectopic Fetus Edition!
Here’s an excerpt from the fabulous Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle (1896):
The instances of delivery of an extrauterine fetus, with viability of the child, from the abdomen of the mother would attract attention from their rarity alone, but when coupled with associations of additional interest they surely deserve a place in a work of this nature. Osiander speaks of an abdominal fetus being taken out alive, and there is a similar case on record in the early part of this century. The London Medical and Physical Journal, in one of its early numbers, contained an account of an abdominal fetus penetrating the walls of the bladder and being extracted from the walls of the hypogastrium; but Sennertus gives a case which far eclipses this, both mother and fetus surviving. He says that in this case the woman, while pregnant, received a blow on the lower part of her body, in consequence of which a small tumor appeared shortly after the accident. It so happened in this case that the peritoneum was extremely dilatable, and the uterus, with the child inside, made its way into the peritoneal sac. In his presence an incision was made and the fetus taken out alive. Jessop gives an example of extrauterine gestation in a woman of twenty-six, who had previously had normal delivery. In this case an incision was made and a fetus of about eight months’ growth was found lying loose in the abdominal cavity in the midst of the intestines. Both the mother and child were saved. This is a very rare result.
Wilson gives an instance of a woman delivered of a healthy female child at eight months which lived. The after-birth came away without assistance, but the woman still presented every appearance of having another child within her, although examination by the vagina revealed none. Wilson called Chatard in consultation, and from the fetal heart-sounds and other symptoms they decided that there was another pregnancy wholly extrauterine. They allowed the case to go twenty-three days, until pains similar to those of labor occurred and then decided on celiotomy. The operation was almost bloodless, and a living child weighing eight pounds was extracted. Unfortunately, the mother succumbed after ninety hours, and in a month the intrauterine child died from inanition [“exhaustion caused by lack of nourishment” – couldn’t they have bottle-fed it? – DeSpair], but the child of extrauterine gestation thrived. Sales gives the case of a negress of twenty-two, who said that she had been “tricked by a negro,” and had a large snake in the abdomen [well, that’s one way to describe it… – DeSpair], and could distinctly feel its movements. She stoutly denied any intercourse. It was decided to open the abdominal cyst; the incision was followed by a gush of blood and a placenta came into view, which was extracted with a living child. To the astonishment of the operators the uterus was distended and it was decided to open it, when another living child was seen and extracted. The cyst and the uterus were cleansed of all clots and the wound closed. The mother died of septicemia, but the children both lived and were doing well six weeks after the operation. A curious case was seen in 1814 of a woman who at her fifth gestation suffered abdominal uneasiness at the third month, and this became intolerable at the ninth month. The head of the fetus could be felt through the abdomen; an incision was made through the parietes; a fully developed female child was delivered, but, unfortunately, the mother died of septic infection. [That’s a shocker! – DeSpair]
Anne Frank and her sister Margot both died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen.