The soldiers had their feet wrapped in rags, pieces of felt or leather, and
when a man had fallen on the road some of his comrades would cut off his
feet and carry them to the next camp fire to remover the rags--for their
own use.
But the general appearance of the emaciated soldiers with long beards, and
faces blackened by the smoke of camp-fires, the body wrapped in dirty rags
of wearing apparel brought from Moscow, was such that it was difficult to
recognize them as soldiers.
And the vermin! Carpon, a surgeon-major of the grand army, in describing
the days of Wilna which were almost as frightful as the disaster of the
Beresina, speaks on this subject. It is revolting. Strange to say, it is
hardly ever mentioned in the medical history of wars, although every one
who has been in the field is quite familiar with it.
At last I have found--in Holzhausen's book--a description of the most
revolting lice plague (phtheiriasis) from which, according to his valet,
Constant, even the emperor was not exempted. As a matter of course under
the circumstances--impossibility of bodily cleanliness--this vermin
developed in a way which baffles description. Suckow, a Wuerttembergian
first lieutenant, speaks of it as causing intolerable distress, disturbing
the sleep at the campfire. Johann von Borcke became alarmed when he
discovered that his whole body was eaten up by these insects. A French
colonel relates that in scratching himself he tore a piece of flesh from
the neck, but that the pain caused by this wound produced a sensation of
relief.
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