In the middle of the summer the disease was not very prevalent in the garrison; most of the cases were among the civil inhabitants. This condition changed in September, however, when the newly-organized mobile guard arrived in the city, consisting of young men who had not been revaccinated for lack of time, and many of whom had never been vaccinated at all. A severe epidemic now began to rage throughout the garrison; between October 1870 and March 1871 no less than 7,578 men suffering from small-pox were taken to the Hôpital Bicêtre, where the majority of the small-pox patients in the garrison were housed, and where 1,074 (14·17 per cent) of them died. Colin reports that the total number of small-pox patients taken there from the garrison (the total number of men in which he estimates at 70,000 regular troops and 100,000 guardsmen)[[258]] was no less than 11,500, and that the number of deaths was 1,600. In November, owing to the rapid dissemination of the disease in the garrison, the number of cases among the civil inhabitants also began to increase.
Small-pox also raged in Metz, but not so extensively as in Paris; the following table indicates the number of men in the garrison carried away by small-pox:
| August (15–31) | 6 |
| September | 40 |
| October | 51 |
| November | 58 |
| December | 21 |
| Total | 176 |
The surrender of the stronghold, on October 27, led to the discovery of 200 small-pox patients in a tobacco factory. The epidemic among the civil inhabitants came to an end in March 1871.
Belfort, where the garrison consisted mostly of national guards, also experienced a severe epidemic during the siege; likewise Strassburg, Nancy, Toul, and Verdun.
In Strassburg, where cases of small-pox had repeatedly been observed, the disease became more widespread in the summer of 1870, and during the siege the number of cases increased considerably; not until August 1871 did the epidemic come to an end. According to Kriesche and Krieger,[[259]] the number of civilians that succumbed to small-pox in Strassburg, the population of which in the year 1871 was 77,859, was:
| 1869. | 1870. | 1871. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 2 | 4 | 81 |
| February | 3 | 5 | 52 |
| March | 3 | 9 | 20 |
| April | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| May | 1 | 19 | 14 |
| June | 2 | 23 | 4 |
| July | 6 | 22 | 3 |
| August | 5 | 33 | 1 |
| September | 2 | 66 | |
| October | 92 | ||
| November | 2 | 72 | 1 |
| December | 3 | 92 | |
| Total | 42 | 451 | 191 |
Langres was attacked with especial severity. The garrison there was composed of freshly enlisted troops (mobile and national guards), and averaged 14,629 men. The epidemic began in September 1870, and was not yet over by March 1871. The following table gives the number of cases and deaths according to Claudot.
| No. cases. | No. deaths. | |
|---|---|---|
| September | 81 | 10 |
| October | 145 | 12 |
| November | 301 | 34 |
| December | 598 | 41 |
| January | 621 | 91 |
| February | 402 | 93 |
| March | 186 | 53 |
| Total | 2,334 | 334 |
The disease raged very extensively in the French provincial armies that were organized to relieve Paris—thus in the south-western, northern, and south-eastern scenes of the war, small-pox had already made its appearance among the civil inhabitants of those parts of the country in consequence of the continual passing through of soldiers, many of whom had never been vaccinated. Orléans, Chartres, and Le Mans, were the main centres of the pestilence; in the north Amiens, Bois-Guillaume, Rouen, and other places; in the south, besides the strongholds of Belfort and Langres, the cities of Dijon, Besançon, Pontarlier, and several other places. The disease raged furiously throughout this entire region, but the exact number of deaths is not known.