Doctors and nurses from an anti-typhus team sponsored by the Joint posing with disinfection equipment

During World War I and subsequent years of continued territorial warfare, the destruction of homes and public bathing facilities and displacement of large populations led to widespread epidemics of typhus and other diseases in Poland. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (“the Joint”), a humanitarian organization created to aid Jews impacted by the war and its aftermath, supported medical and sanitary work by existing regional organizations until 1920. In April of that year, it sent American Dr. Harry Plotz, discoverer of typhus and of its vaccine, to investigate the crisis conditions in Poland (including regions currently part of Ukraine) and develop a more comprehensive, systematic approach. Plotz brought a medical team of doctors, nurses and health inspectors and a mobile delousing machine, which heated clothing and blankets to very high temperatures.