Arizona republican., 1904-06-16
PHoEN1x. ARIZONA. JUNE 16, 1901.
Disease Tore Deadly Than Battle.

According to an official statement
 given out at St. Petersburg on June
 A, the Russian losses to that date
 comprised so officers and 1900 soldiers and sailors killed. Nearly half of this loss occurred when the battleship Pe- tropavlovsk went down with 500 men, so that if the Russian figures be ac- cepted as accurate the losses in the battles of the Yalu and at Nanshan hill were insignificant in comparison with the casualties in the great battles of the American civil war. Segregat- ing the figures, the St. Petersburg statement says that the army's total loss in killed amounted to A officers and go men. Nor is the list of wound ed much moro formidable; 103 officers and 2,OSO men. The severe fighting of the last few days will of course add materially to these numbers. The Jap anese losses on the water have been about the same as the Russian losses. although the Japanese have never made a statement of the lives lost by the destruction of their battleship Hatsuse. They admit that their losses in taking Nanshan hill by storm com prised 4,OOO killed and twice as many wounded.
 It should be borne in mind, however, that these mortality statistics cannot represent the losses each army has suffered. More deaths occur in camps and hospitals, by far. than in battle. Indeed, the soldiers killed by disease vastly outnumber the victims of the battlefield, and the real terrcr of war is not the bullet, but is to be found in the microbes of typhoid fever. dysen- tery. smallpox, measles, pneumonia and cholera.
 This fact is graphically illustrated by the mortality returns of the civil war In that struggle the Federal sol- diers killed in battle or dead from wounds numbered 11O,O7O, terrific eX- hibit. truly; but 249, ,45S men lest their lives by disease and other causes-dis- ease, in nearly every instance. For ev- cry man that met death by the shot and shell of the enemy, two men died of disease. The Confederate losses were never accurately tabulated, but they were undoubtedly in like propor- tion. It Is known that 5000 Confed- crates met death in battle or from wounds received in battle. and from the experience of the northern soldiers it is safe to say that at least 100000 men in the southern army died of disease.
 Nor have modern sanitary methods changed these proportions, apparently. In the South African war the English had 45OOOO men engaged, as against g. 666. .999 enlisted cn the union side in the civil war. The British losses in the contest with the Boers aggregated 22.- O45 dead, very few of whom were kill cd in battle: disease claimed nearly all of them. In addition to these, there were 75, ,63O soldiers sent to England as invalids, Q heavy percentage of whom subsequently, died from the ailments in- cured in the service. In the same war the Boers with a total enlistment of lo-UyD ana lne SuNdHldSt OL DtlllS eA' climated, lost 3,7OO from the bullets of the enemy and more than 10000 from disease. During our short war with Spain but 3O6 men were killed in battle | or died of wounds, while 2,604 died of disease.
 And these totals do not include the i tens Of thousands who died months oI 1 years after peace was declared. as a | direct result of disease brought on by | exposure in war. Indeed, the United States pension rolls constitute the mos. | eloquent recital that could be- made l concerning tte havoc wrought by wal s | diseases.
 It is not to be expected that the | Russians and Japanese-especially the | Russians-will suffer less than Amer | jeans or Englishmen in military camps | On the contrary, Russian sanitary meth | ods are so far below the standard that | before many months, Kuropatkin's | losses in camps and hospitals will in- evitably reach appalling proportions.