Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1918-03-08
Death Percentage Slight.

1
Many fathers AMI mothers will be
interested in reading what Surgeon
General Gorgas, the foremost military
medical expert of the United States.
has to say regarding the actual danger
of death in battle, wounds or other
causes that will be sustained by the
American army
There seems to be an impression
in this country that to fight in the
present war means almost sure death
to soldier. AS a matter of fact, both
in the danger from disease and in the
deadliness of the actual fighting there
is no comparison between the war in
Europe today and our Civil War.
SIN the Civil War our mortalit y
was something over five per cent for
the four years. 1t is true that the
French armies suffered almost exactly
the same death losses during the first
five months of this war. But people
must not forget that those first five
months were the most disastrous per-
iod, especially for the Allies, who were
unprepared in every way. "By 1916
the French had reducei their mo rial
ity to only about two per cent for
twelve months! That is a rate of only
/ twenty per thousand. Even in civil
life rate of thirteen to fifteen per
thousand is usual. Therefore, it is
evident that the additional war risk is
surprisingly low.
''After three days battle in our
Civil War such battle as Gettys-
burg, for instance-a third of the
men engaged were left on the field.
You cannot find in the present con-
f1ict any three days as disastrous as
that.
Yet I will say that if you take a
period of several years, it seems to me
that the chance of mans being
killed in action is greater now than it
was during the Civil War. This is be-
cause he ghJs now almost continuous
~. He is in the trenches most of the
time instead of going into an OCCASION
al big battle, with weeks or months
of inaction between.
but this risk of being killed in
action has been in other wars by far
the lesser danger. Death from disease
and from wounds was. the greater
menace. One of the finest aspects
Of the present great struggle is that
these conditions have been reversed.
At this stage of the war many COM
manders report that their soldier are
in better health, even in the trenches,
than our civilian population is here at
home. There are fewer colds on the
battle line in France than there are
on Broadway. And the same thing is
true of more serious troubles.
'sAs late as the Spanish-American
War we lost more men from typhoid
fever than from bullets or bayonets,
In the Boer War the British, in an
army of only about 100000 men, lad
almost $4,000 cases Of typhoid, with
over 5000 deaths.
in the first three years of the pres
ent war, with over 100000 men, and
in a country much more productive of
typhoid Infection, they had only 292
deaths! About one to every l0,OO0men.
There has been no widespread disease.
among the armies on the western
front. This is a splendid record.
/" In our previous wars thousands Of
soldiers died in hospitals without ever
seeing action, Their suffering and
death did not aid victory but actually
delayed it. This useless waste of life
does not occur now. Thousands of
our soldiers, instead of dying of dis
eose, will come out Of the army better
men physically than they were when
they entered tilt is safe to say that
more lives will be saved by preventive
medicine and modern sanation than
will be lost in the actual fighting.
People at home should understand
this.
AMERICAN MAGAZINE.