The day before he was to be hanged, he swapped his identity with another French prisoner who had died of typhus.

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She died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen camp in March 1945.

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The same thing is true of other well-studied bugs, such as those that cause typhus and plague, and is likely to be true of most bacteria.

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Suffering from diseases including typhus, they were locked inside with too few doctors to care for them and fatty foods their bodies could no longer digest.

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The wonder drug of the era was penicillin, which along with better hygiene and other treatments, thwarted diseases that only seem to ravage developing countries these days yellow fever, dysentery, typhoid, cholera, typhus, and more.

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