Editing Burma Railway (section)

=== Death rates and causes ===
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 30%; height:40px" align="right"
|+ '''Deaths of Allied Soldiers working on the Death Railway, 1942–1945'''&nbsp;<ref name="mansell.com"/><ref name=Marcello>{{cite journal| last=Marcello| first=Ronald E.| title=Lone Star POWs: Texas National Guardsmen and the Building of the Burma-Thailand Railroad, 1942–1944| journal=The Southwestern Historical Quarterly| volume=95| issue=3| date=January 1992| pages=297–319}}</ref><br />
|-
! scope="col" | Country of origin
! scope="col" | POWs
! scope="col" | Number of deaths
! scope="col" | Death rate
|-
! scope="row" | UK, [[British Raj|British India]] or [[crown colony|crown&nbsp;colony]]
| 30,131 || 6,904 || {{percentage|6904|30131}}
|-
! scope="row" | Netherlands or<br /> [[Dutch East Indies|Dutch&nbsp;East&nbsp;Indies]]
| 17,990 || 2,782 || {{percentage|2782|17990}}
|-
! scope="row" | Australia
| 13,004 || 2,802 || {{percentage|2802|13004}}
|-
! scope="row" | United States
| 686 || 133 || {{percentage|133|686}}
|-
! scope="row" | ''Total''
| 61,811 || 12,621 || {{percentage|12621|61811}}
|}
In addition to malnutrition and physical abuse, [[malaria]], [[cholera]], [[dysentery]] and [[tropical ulcer]]s were common contributing factors in the death of workers on the Burma Railway.<ref name="pbs"/> The labourers that suffered the highest casualties were Burmese and Indian Tamils from Malaya and Myanmar, as well as many Javanese.<ref name="mansell.com" />

A lower death rate among Dutch POWs and internees, relative to those from the UK and Australia, has been linked to the fact that many personnel and civilians taken prisoner in the [[Dutch East Indies]] had been born there, were long-term residents and/or had [[Indo people|Eurasian ancestry]]; they tended thus to be more resistant to tropical diseases and to be better acclimatized than other Western Allied personnel.

The quality of medical care received by different groups of prisoners varied enormously. One factor was that many European and US doctors had little experience with tropical diseases. For example, a group of 400 Dutch prisoners, which included three doctors with extensive tropical medicine experience, suffered no deaths at all. Another group, numbering 190 US personnel, to whom ''Lieutenant'' Henri Hekking, a Dutch medical officer with experience in the tropics was assigned, suffered only nine deaths. Another cohort of 450 US personnel suffered 100 deaths.{{sfn|Daws|1994|pp=242–243}}

Weight loss among Allied officers who worked on construction was, on average, 9–14&nbsp;kg (20–30&nbsp;lb) less than that of enlisted personnel.{{sfn|Daws|1994|pp=223–243}} Workers in more isolated areas suffered a much higher death rate than did others.{{sfn|Daws|1994|pp=223–243}}