7. Survey of the Epidemic of Typhus Fever in the Years 1813–14
It is impossible to draw an accurate picture of the loss of human life which typhus fever caused in the years 1813–14. This is due, on the one hand, to the lack of reliable statistics, and, on the other hand, to the fact that the several regions suffered to a varying degree, depending upon the number of troops, prisoners, and refugees that they received. The number of persons that succumbed to typhus fever in Germany during the years 1813–14 must be estimated at least as high as 200,000 or 300,000. Assuming that 200,000 people succumbed to the disease, the number that contracted it would amount to some 2,000,000. Since Germany at that time had hardly more than 20,000,000 inhabitants, some ten per cent of them, on the basis of this assumption, contracted the disease. The size of this number is significant, when we consider that the stronger and older people manifested particular susceptibility to the disease.
One of the chief causes of the wide dissemination of typhus fever in the years 1813–14 was the imperfect development of the lazaret system. If at first a lazaret for infectious diseases was available, the number of patients it was called upon to accommodate in a few days became so large that new buildings always had to be opened for them, and it was impossible to keep them isolated. The efforts of the various municipal administrations to have the lazarets erected outside the city limits were powerless against the brutal obstinacy of the French, and, later, of the Russian generals. The severity of the penalty which they had to pay for unceremoniously housing infected French troops in strongholds together with healthy men, is evident from the fearful devastation caused by typhus fever in Danzig, Torgau, Mayence, &c. The little communities were absolutely helpless against the dominating power of the soldiers. One might reproach the municipal administrations of that time with failing to adopt measures of prevention against the menacing danger of pestilence, particularly in places which did not suffer in consequence of the marching back and forth of soldiers. But one must take into account the excitement which permeated the entire people at that time—the hopeful longing to be freed from the national enemy’s long oppression, toward which all thinking and planning was directed, the employment of all resources for this purpose, and in particular the fact that sheer ignorance rendered appropriate measures impossible. If this ignorance prevailed in the highest places, nothing better was to be expected of the administrations of the smaller cities and towns. The population was therefore everywhere defenceless against the intrusion of the pestilence, which was given an opportunity to become more and more widespread. This, however, had not been the case in Central Europe since the Thirty Years’ War.