168 CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE 



Disarticulation at joints showed an average mortality 

 of 56 per cent. Fifteen amputations at the hip- joint gave 

 a mortality of 100 per cent., and resections claimed 40.2 

 per cent, of deaths. Even at the knee-joint Stromeyer 

 amputated 36 times with 36 deaths and Nussbaum 34 

 times with 34 deaths. 17 



The French results were naturally worse, for their 

 armies were constantly being defeated and retreating, 

 and, especially in the latter part of the war, they consisted 

 largely of volunteers, while the Germans were mostly 

 veterans of the Schleswig-Holstein and Austro-Prussian 

 wars. 



Of the Boer War (1899-1901) only two features need 

 be noticed. First, that typhoid attacked 57,684 men and 

 killed 8,022, while the Boers only killed 7,781. Bacteria 

 were more deadly than bullets, as Osier has said. 



Secondly, the modern missile was for the first time in 

 general use, with the result that instead of about 15 per 

 cent, of the wounded losing their lives, only about 8.8 

 per cent. died. The wounds from the new missile were 

 much less severe and healed more quickly than ever be- 

 fore. The first aid packet also had come to the aid of the 

 soldier. 



The Spanish American War, surgically speaking, was 

 of little moment, as the numbers killed and wounded were 

 too small to make the statistics of any great value, but it 

 is gratifying to find that only 4.6 per cent, of the wounded 

 died. 



Typhoid, however, held high carnival. It caused 86.24 

 per cent, of all the deaths ! Happily we can say that here- 

 after thanks chiefly to the anti-typhoid inoculations- 

 there will never be another such holocaust. (Fide Lec- 

 ture II.) 



The statistics of the Russo-Japanese War also need 

 detain us for only a moment. I shall only quote the 

 Japanese official statistics, as given by Major Lynch, of 



17 Wrench's Lister, p. 236. 



