Veterinary experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war and ex-POW along the Burma railroad from 1942 to January 1946

Summary As a prisoner of war the writer was working for nearly three years in different POW camps, and outside them, along the Burma railway from Thanbyuyzat in southern Burma up to Kanchanabury in Thailand. In the army of the Netherlands-Indian archipelago (KNIL) he had the military rank of reserve horse-doctor. In civilian life he was attached to the Veterinary Institute in Buitenzorg (now Bogor) as a veterinary bacteriologist. His task as a POW became that of meathygienist and supervisor of the living animals in the camps. In this function he diagnosed swine fever in growing pigs which had mainly been fed on the offal of the Japanese kitchen. The acute course and the pathological alterations observed during the post-mortem examinations were identical with those of the Southern-African type of the disease. In slaughter cattle the author diagnosed some cases of lung tuberculosis, one of anthrax, several of rinderpest, some of rhinal granulomatosis and one of foot and mouth disease. In chickens he found NCD (pseudo-fowlpest) and in ducklings a mortal disease which the author then called 'keeling disease' but which he many years later, recognized as virus hepatitis. As assistant bacteriologist and ex-POW he joined the British regimental hospital in Bangkok. Here he had the opportunity to assist the bacteriologist pathologist, Maj. C. R. Peck IMS / IAMC in diagnosing the first case of melioidosis in an ex-POW of the KNIL who died from the sub-acute infection, notwithstanding treatment in the hospital with sulfa-drugs and penicillin.