It made considerable difference from what part of the scene of the war the prisoners came; those coming from Strassburg and Toul were much less severely infected with typhoid fever than those from Sedan and Metz. This applies particularly to General Bourbaki’s men, who manifested the least power of resistance to the disease. In Rastatt, for example, there were at one time sixty prisoners suffering from typhoid fever; of those who had come from Strassburg, Neubreisach, and Schlettstadt 13·3 per cent died; of those from Metz 14·5 per cent died, and of those from Bourbaki’s army 40·6 per cent died. Of the French prisoners confined in Germany (the maximum number was 374,995 and the average number 262,496) 15,020 contracted typhoid fever and 3,835 succumbed to it. The prevalence of the disease among the German troops, as compared with its prevalence among the French prisoners, is indicated by the following table:
| No. per 1,000 that succumbed to typhoid fever. | No. that died per 100 treated. | |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile German army | 11·2 | 12·0 |
| Immobile German army[[241]] | 3·0 | 4·1 |
| French prisoners | 14·6 | 25·6 |
The immediate vicinity of the places in which all these French prisoners suffering from typhoid fever were confined was necessarily unsafe to live in; and while the epidemics that were brought about by people contracting the disease there and conveying it abroad were always kept localized, they were by no means confined to the very narrow limits indicated, on the basis of scattered communications, in the German Health Report. The reason for this moderate dissemination is clear; at that time typhoid fever was rendered much less prevalent throughout Germany by the introduction of extensive sanitary measures (sewers, aqueducts, refuse removal, &c.), which prevented the disease from constantly spreading from place to place. In Frankfurt-on-the-Main the mortality due to typhoid fever was not increased; the number of deaths per 10,000 inhabitants was:
| 1867 | 4·3 |
| 1868 | 7·1 |
| 1869 | 4·2 |
| 1870 | 5·8 |
| 1871 | 5·8 |
| 1872 | 6·1 |
In many cities, on the other hand, an increased number of deaths due to typhoid fever was observed; whether this was attributable to a transplantation of it from France, or to a spontaneous outbreak of it among the many people in these cities who already had the germ in their systems, it is impossible to ascertain. From the statistics we are scarcely ever able to make out the proportion of soldiers and civilians that died. The number of deaths due to typhoid fever per 10,000 inhabitants was:
| Berlin. | Munich.[[242]] | Elberfeld. | Strassburg. | Erfurt. | Plauen. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1867 | 6·9 | 6·0 | 8·1 | 8·5 | 10·6 | 2·4 |
| 1868 | 10·0 | 8·0 | 5·3 | 9·0 | 9·4 | 3·3 |
| 1869 | 6·7 | 13·0 | 5·3 | 9·6 | 6·7 | |
| 1870 | 7·8 | 14·0 | 9·3 | 17·8 | 21·8 | |
| 1871 | 8·9 | 14·0 | 9·4 | 14·2 | 33·1 | 2·5 |
| 1872 | 13·9 | 24·0 | 8·8 | 7·8 | 5·3 | 4·9 |
In the case of Strassburg the increase caused by the war is clear; of the civil inhabitants alone, 74 died in the year 1869, 137 in the year 1870, and 110 in the year 1871. In the case of Elberfeld the increase began in the year 1870. In Munich the increase began as early as the year 1869, although the very high mortality did not commence until 1872, as in Berlin; in these two cases the increase cannot be said to have been caused by the war. The same is true of Plauen, where the increase also began in 1869. In the case of Erfurt, unfortunately no statistics are available for the year 1870; in the year 1871 the increase there is very marked. To be sure, it is not expressly stated that prisoners of war are excluded, but as they were not included in the total mortality, or in that due to small-pox, we may safely assume that they were excluded in the case of typhoid fever.[[243]]
A marked increase in the prevalence of typhoid fever is to be noted in the stronghold of Ulm on the occasion of the arrival there of numerous prisoners from France; the following table indicates the number of people who succumbed to the disease in that city:[[244]]
| Garrison. | Prisoners. | Civil population. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1867 | 10 | 25 | |
| 1868 | 3 | 8 | |
| 1869 | 4 | 7 | |
| 1870 | 10 | 150 | 15 |
| 1871 | 15 | 25 | 28 |
| 1872 | 6 | 20 | |
| 1873 | 2 | 5 |
Since in the case of typhoid fever it is very often impossible to trace the source of infection, it is not surprising that in many instances it is difficult to prove that the disease broke out in any specific locality in consequence of the arrival there of a person, or group of persons, from an infected locality. This applies, for instance, to the epidemic of typhoid fever that occurred in Meiningen in the year 1871. In many places the disease, being prevalent among the prisoners detained there, undoubtedly spread to the civil population, but nowhere did this occur to such an extent as to attract the attention of the authorities.