Although as chaplain Michael Bergin wasn’t out on the fronts fighting, he still fell victim to the illnesses and injuries of war. On 16th June 1915, he was admitted to A. S. Hospital Mudros, a town on the island of Lemnos, in Greece which was used as an allied base with influenza and diarrhoea. Commonly known as the flu, influenza is an extremely contagious virus pasted from person to person by sneezing or coughing. In the Great War, more people died of influenza rather than the war itself. The pandemic outbreak however started in 1918 after Bergin’s death. Diarrhoea during World War One was common, caused by bacteria entering the mouth in food or water. This was inevitable in the life of an ANZAC living in cramped trenches with no proper sanitation.
