Abstract
The invasion of the ancient Ethiopian empire perpetrated by the Italian fascist regime in 1935–1936 deserves all the blame due to a war of aggression, a belated colonial enterprise and a bullying act of a totalitarian regime. Yet there is one aspect of that war that aroused universal admiration among contemporaries and which still deserves to be analysed today: the healthcare of troops. The Italian army, which came close to half a million men, was the largest European army that had ever fought in tropical or sub-tropical territories. Many Cassandras expected a health catastrophe, even more than a military one. But Mussolini decided to entrust Sir Aldo Castellani, the famous tropicalist doctor who had been living between Italy and England for years, with the role of Inspector General of Military and Civilian Health Services for East Africa. At the end of the seven-month victorious military campaign, the very low number of casualties recorded due to illness or injury evoked amazement and admiration. This was not just propaganda, as proved by the uncountable invitations from military and health authorities all over the world (including some of the nations that had imposed economic sanctions against Italy a few months earlier) for Castellani to reveal his secret through lectures, articles and conferences. Even US President Franklyn D. Roosevelt, who as a polio sufferer was particularly sensitive to public health issues, asked for and obtained a long private interview with Castellani, the “man who won the war”.
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Notes
- 1.
This contribution is an anticipation of a more extensive biographical research on Castellani by the author. In this paper, as well as in the full biography, I will have to rely many times on the famous autobiography Castellani published, in many editions and different countries, in the early 1960s. As every autobiographical source, it needs to be handled very carefully, trying to compare its contents and statements whenever possible with independent sources. I’ve tried to do so in this partial contribution, too.
- 2.
Here Lampson probably mistook Italian Somaliland with Eritrea that was the real target of the voyage.
- 3.
Castellani’s daughter Jacqueline.
- 4.
I will take this and some subsequent information from my own copy of Aldo Castellani’s Foglio Matricolare (military registration sheet) and I will refer to it as ACFM.
- 5.
Igino Jacono (1889–1972) was, at that time, the main collaborator of Castellani in the Roman Clinic.
- 6.
United Press Red Letter, New York, July 11, 1936, quoted also, for example, in Castellani 1939, p. 150. I was unable to find the original text except in numerous publications by Aldo Castellani himself: what makes it credible is above all the fact that no one seems to have ever denied it.
- 7.
Castellani had been a correspondent member since 1925.
- 8.
It is not clear if these figures refers only to Italian East Africa or if they include also Libya.
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Acknowledgments
I want to thank, apart from the anonymous reviewers of my work, Admiral Vincenzo Martines for providing me with important data and bibliographic references.
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Borghi, L. (2022). “Man Who Won the War”: Myth and Reality of Aldo Castellani’s Role in Preserving the Health of Troops During the Italo-Ethiopian War 1935–1936. In: Donelli, G. (eds) Advances in Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Public Health. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology(), vol 1434. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/5584_2022_737
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