THE SELECTIVE INFLUENCE OF WAR 209 
Géneralsnen. ss Ste si iosoiataths 46 per 1,000 
Staff Oficersh 2.ccacucushvityowedos ve roy 
Captains, Captains of Horse........... 8 “ & 
Tien tenants yy: .2.5 ogi eesnc.d saan wees 8g HH 
Under Officers and Men............... “gece * 
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. Jordan 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 20-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 
