If we designate the lives lost in battle, the killed and the wounded who die, as 1, the loss of the German army from disease in 1870-71 was 1.5, that of the Russians in 1877-78 was 2.7, that of the French in Mexico was 2.8, that of the French in the Crimea 3.7, that of the English in Egypt 4.2.The total loss of the German army in 1870-71 from wounds and disease was 43,182 officers and men, and this seems a small number compared with the 129,128 deaths from smallpox in the same period in Prussia alone.

In the Spanish American war there were 20,178 cases of typhoid fever with 1,580 deaths.

In the South African war there were in the British troops 31,118 cases of typhoid with 5,877 deaths, and 5,149 deaths from other diseases while the loss in battle was 7,582.

The Athenian plague which prevailed during the Peloponnesian war, 431-405 B.C., not only caused the death of Pericles, but according to Thucydides a loss of 4,800 Athenian soldiers, and brought about the downfall of the Athenian hegemony in Greece.

In the Crimean war between 1853-56, 16,000 English, 80,000 French and 800,000 Russians died of typhus fever.