Disinfected mail; historical review and tentative listing of cachets, handstamp markings, wax seals, wafer seals and manuscript certifications alphabetically arranged according to countries

Abstract

The title fails to do justice to the variety of information on medical history the book contains. It presents interesting reading for bacteriologists, public health and medical historians, sociologists, and political scientists, as well as philatelists. Dr. Meyer, professor of experimental pathology, emeritus, at the University of California School of Medicine, with the aid of foreign collaborators, has done thorough research in epidemics going back to the Middle Age. He points out that the spread of infectious diseases followed mail and trade routes. It was natural that disinfection of mail—though today known to be ineffective—was to follow. The Soviet-controlled regime in East Germany, as late as 1955, used the idea as propaganda in a district where there was an outbreak of paratyphoid fever. Americans were accused of using the mail as a means of bacterial warfare. The book is profusely illustrated with disinfected mail markings and cancellations. An excellent index