The soldiers in the trenches suffered from lice. One man described them as, "pale fawn in colour, and they left blotchy red bite marks all over the body.” Another soldier said, "The things lay in the seams of trousers, in the deep furrows of long thick woolly pants, and seemed impregnable in their deep entrenchment. A lighted candle applied where they were thickest made them pop like Chinese crackers. After a session of this, my face would be covered with small blood spots from extra big fellows which had popped too vigorously." As well as causing lots of scratching, lice also carried disease. This was known as pyrrexhia or trench fever. The first symptoms were shooting pains in the legs and this was followed by a very high fever. The disease did not kill the soldiers but it did stop them from fighting.