June 11, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



853 



amputations at the hip-joint gave a mor- 

 tality 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.^^ 



The French results were naturally worse, 

 for their armies were constantly being de- 

 feated 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-Hol- 

 stein and Austro-Prussian wars. 



Of the Boer War (1899-1901) only two 

 features need be noticed. First, that ty- 

 phoid 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 modem 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.S 

 per cent. died. The wounds from the new 

 missile were much less severe and healed 

 more quickly than ever before. 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 num- 

 bers 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 hereafter — 

 thanks chiefly to the anti-typhoid inocula- 

 tions — there will never be another such 

 holocaust. (Vide Lecture II.) 



The statistics of the Russo-Japanese War 

 also need detain us for only a moment. I 

 shall only quote the Japanese official sta- 

 tistics, as given by Major Lynch, of our 



isWrencli's "Lister," p. 236. 



army." There were 47,387 killed. Of 173,- 

 425 wounded 11,500 died, a mortality of 

 6.7 per cent. The killed and those who 

 died of wounds numbered in all 58,887, 

 while the deaths from disease numbered 

 only 27,158, a remarkable showing. 



The present war naturally has yielded 

 so far very few statistics. These can only 

 be collected and tabulated after some years 

 of peace. So far as I can judge, I fear that, 

 while the mortality from disease (except 

 perhaps from typhus, especially in Serbia) 

 will be less than in former wars, the mili- 

 tary conditions are such that the larger 

 number of artillery wounds, the unavoid- 

 able delay in gathering the wounded into 

 hospitals, the apparent absence of any 

 truce for collecting the wounded and 

 burying the dead, and the virulent infec- 

 tion from the soil may result in a large mor- 

 tality rate and possibly a larger percent- 

 age than in previous wars in spite of the 

 benefits of Listerism. But were the first- 

 aid packet and the Listerian treatment not 

 available the mortality ratio in this present 

 horrible war unquestionably would be far 

 greater than that which will be recorded. 



This short resume gives us some idea of 

 surgical conditions preceding the great 

 revolution inaugurated by Lister to which 

 we will next proceed. 



W. W. Keen 



LADT EUGGINS 



Lady Margaret Lindsay Huggins, who 

 passed into the higher life March 24, was a 

 personality worthy to be classed with the 

 group of pioneer women of the last century 

 who, under difficulties, achieved distinction in 

 intellectual fields. 



Mary Somerville was deprived of her candle 

 when her mother found that she was secretly 

 studying Euclid; Anna Swanwiek was denied 



19 ' ' Eeports of Military Observers attached to 

 the Armies ia Manchuria during the Eusso-Japan- 

 ese War, ' ' Part IV., p. 399. 



