HTSTOEICAL EACES 247 



Finally, though disease has nowadays very largely come under 

 scientific control, by far the greater number of deaths is due to 

 disease. Thus in 1917 there were 498,922 deaths among the 

 civihan population of England and Wales. Of these, 20,480 were 

 due to violence (not suicide), 2,495 to suicide, 2,485 to ill-defined 

 or unknown causes, and 2,598 took place during pregnancy. Of 

 the remainder all were due to defined diseases. Enteric fever 

 (typhoid and paratyphoid) accounted for 977, measles for 10,538 ; 

 whooping cough, 4,509 ; tuberculosis for 59,934 ; syphilis for 

 2,127 ; cancer for 41,158 j pneumonia for 39,832 ; diphtheria 

 and croup for 4,498 ; meningitis for 4,761 ; organic heart disease 

 for 52,692 ; bronchitis for 38,907 ; other respiratory diseases for 

 7,031 ; diarrhoea for 13,311 ; nephritis and Bright's disease for 

 14,298 ; and congenital debihty for 23,850.i 



3. Warfare is the second factor — disease being the first — 

 which among these races is remarkable in that its effects are not 

 regular. It is wholly impossible to estimate the loss of life in 

 war until modern times. Contemporary statements nearly always 

 hugely exaggerate the numbers engaged in battle and the number 

 slain. ' In the first Battle of St. Albans we have been told that 

 five thousand persons were slain. It is almost certain that not 

 much more than half that number were in action.' ^ This is 

 probably equally true of nearly all such statements. With regard 

 to elimination through warfare there are two facts to be borne 

 in mind. The first is that, even if the contemporary statements 

 were correct, war is by no means so important a factor as it seems 

 at first sight. A practice which resulted in the conscious hmita- 

 tion of each family by one child would have greater results over 

 a period of years than there is ever claimed as the direct result 

 of warfare in reducing numbers over a similar period. The second 

 is that the indirect ehmination following upon warfare is of far 

 greater importance than the direct elimination. Famine and 

 disease following warfare were until recent times responsible for 

 many more deaths than warfare itself. When we are told that 

 during the Thirty Years' War the population of Wiirtemberg was 

 reduced from 500,000 to 4^,000,^ it has to be remembered that 

 disease and famine played a greater part than loss of life in 

 battle. Further, when the direct effects of warfare as a whole 



1 Annual Report of the Registrar-Oemral for 1917. ^ Rogers, loc. cit., vol. i, 



p. 332. ' Niebuhr, Lectures in Ancient History, vol. ii, p. 234. 



