typhoid fever was a bacterial infection caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi and it was one of the deadliest diseases of World War I. Its symptoms included sweating, diarrhea, and a high temperature. Typhoid fever sufferers would become extremely dehydrated and had to endure excruciating pain. Typhus fever, also referred to as gaol fever or ship fever, on the other hand, was transmitted amongst soldiers through body lice called Pedunculus humans; the core organism or virus was called Rickettsia prowazekii. The disease came about due to bad hygiene. During the war, a massive number of deaths occurred because of typhus fever and since there were no antibiotics, the mortality rate varied from 10 to 80 percent.