Original Title/Caption:  “Wounded American soldiers given medical attention in New Guinea.”

Description: In this black and white photograph, seven wounded soldiers rest on stretchers on the ground in New Guinea.  Two other soldiers tend to the wounded.  This photograph was taken between 1942 and 1945 by the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Source: “Wounded American soldiers given medical attention in New Guinea.”  Photograph, between 1942 and 1945.  From Library of Congress: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Call number LC-USW33- 024268-C.  http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8e01070 (accessed March 20, 2007).

Historical discussion: Soldiers in the Pacific, however, faced mosquito- and fly-borne diseases.  Fevers, diarrhea, nausea, and skin infections plagued soldiers in places like New Guinea and Guadalcanal.  Soldiers in the Mediterranean also faced malaria and other insect-borne diseases.  Manpower losses to disease were staggering in places like New Guinea, Guadalcanal, and Sicily (Cowdrey 63-65, 76 -77, 132-33).

See Albert E. Cowdrey, Fighting for Life: American Military Medicine in World War II (New York: The Free Press, 1994).