THE SELECTIVE INFLUENCE OF WAR 209 



Generals 46 per 1,000 



Staff Officers 105 " " 



Captains, Captains of Horse 86 " " 



Lieutenants 89 " " 



Under Officers and Men 45 " " 



Since in general officers represent a class superior in intelligence 

 and efficiency their enhanced death rate in war cannot fail to 

 have a dysgenic effect. 



In his treatment of the biological influence of war it is some- 

 what unfortunate that Dr. Jordon should have limited himself 

 to the simpler and more obvious aspects of the subject. He has 

 done good service in calling general attention to the dysgenic 

 effect of certain aspects of military selection, but he has given 

 slight attention to or passed over in silence several of its secondary 

 biological results and especially the very important problem of 

 the racial value of group selection. There are some counter 

 tendencies which, while they may not outweigh the effect of losses 

 in battle, are nevertheless of considerable importance. Sickness 

 in most wars carries off more soldiers than fall in battle. Accord- 

 ing to Kellogg, "In the terrible 2O-year stretch of the Napoleonic 

 campaigns the British Army had an annual rate of mortality from 

 all causes of 56.21 per thousand men; the mortality from disease 

 was 49.61 per thousand, leaving the direct loss from gun fire to be 

 only 7.60 per thousand. The British losses in the Crimea in two 

 and a half years were 3 per cent by gun fire and 20 per cent by 

 disease." In our Spanish war we lost ten times as many soldiers 

 from disease as we did in battle. Even in the short Franco- 

 Prussian war the losses by disease slightly exceeded the losses 

 from gun fire. This high mortality from disease affords a certain 

 test of toughness, as it is fair to suppose that those with the weak- 

 est constitutions succumb in the largest numbers. This, how- 

 ever, eliminates only the worst of the best and its general value to 

 the race is, therefore, open to question. 



Another secondary effect of importance is the influence of war 

 on the civilian death rate and birth rate. This influence varies 



