June 11, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



851 



princes or great nobles, as was Pare, in the 

 same century. 



To Sir James McGrigor in the Peninsular 

 Campaign (1808-11) only fifty years be- 

 fore our Civil War, is given the credit by 

 Duncan of first collecting accurate military 

 medical statistics. 



One hundred and fifty years ago 25 per 

 cent, or more of the wounded died. In the 

 Civil War and in the Franco-Prussian War 

 of 1870-1 the rate had fallen to about 15 

 per cent., while to-day up to the present war 

 not over 5 or 6 per cent, die of wounds. 



The Crimean War will always be an ex- 

 ample of utter inefficiency in the English 

 and even worse in the French army. Its 

 one bright spot is the splendid epoch- 

 making work of a woman, Florence Night- 

 ingale, whose labors were unceasing and 

 effective. Every war since then has seen 

 less sickness and fewer deaths because of 

 what she then accomplished. 



Chenu, the French medical historian of 

 that war, has made one curious and inter- 

 esting calculation, partly official, partly 

 estimated. The number of projectiles of 

 all kinds actually fired he gives as 89,595,- 

 363. The total number of killed and 

 wounded was 175,057. This would show 

 that it took 512 projectiles to kill or wound 

 one man. Such a disproportion would more 

 than justify a cartoon during our Civil 

 War. Two soldiers were surprised by a 

 hundred of the enemy. One proposed to 

 the other to run for it. "No," was the 

 cool reply, "There's no danger, for they 

 say only one ball in 200 ever hits and there 

 are only one hundred of those fellows." 



Duncan's figures give 82,901 British sol- 

 diers sent to the Crimea, but the average 

 strength was only 34,559, or only about 40 

 per cent., of effectives. The killed (2,755) 

 and the deaths from wounds (2,019) gave a 

 battle death rate of 69 per 1,000 per annum, 

 while the disease death rate rose to 230 per 

 1,000 per annum. 



In all, 300 men out of each 1,000 perished each 

 year! 



But the French statistics are still worse. 

 While 315,000 were sent out, the average 

 strength was less than 104,000 effectives, or 

 only 33 per cent. The killed numbered 

 7,607 and the deaths from wounds 8,813. 

 The battle death rate was 70, the disease 

 death rate 341, per 1,000 per annum. Over 

 6,000 died from typhus alone. 



Could there be a nobler example of the 

 altruism of our profession — an altruism 

 often tested and never in vain — than that 

 shown by Drs. Richard P. Strong, Thomas 

 W. Jackson, and many other doctors and 

 trained nurses, and now finally by the chief 

 of our corps — the friend of humanity — 

 Major General William C. Gorgas in has- 

 tening, regardless of danger, to the relief of 

 Serbia, sorely smitten by the deadly typhus 

 fever ? 



Chenu 's report gives a summary of the 

 English as well as the French losses. 

 Comparing it with Simpson's civil statistics 

 eleven years later the mortality of the four 

 selected amputations (arm, forearm, thigh 

 and leg) was as follows: Of 2,089 of these 

 four amputations in civil hospitals the mor- 

 tality in Simpson's table was 41 per cent. 

 In the Crimean War among the British 

 there were 460 such amputations and 183 

 deaths, or 40 per cent. In the French army 

 there were 5,972 such amputations with 

 4,023 deaths, a mortality of 67.4 per cent. 

 In both armies disarticulation at the hip- 

 joint had a mortality of 100 per cent., i. e., 

 every case died. It is instructive also to 

 compare the fate of those who had an 

 amputation of the thigh (1,666 French 

 cases) with a mortality of 92 per cent., and 

 487 cases treated conservatively, i. e., with- 

 out amputation, with a mortality of only 

 70 per cent.! 



In our Civil War Duncan quotes the fig- 

 ures of Fox, which are "the latest revised 



