Regarding the dissemination of small-pox in the Province of Saxony Guttstadt gives us very detailed information. In the years 1871–2 the disease was equally prevalent in all three governmental districts in the Province. In the city of Magdeburg the last case was reported on May 24, 1870, and from then until November there was not a single case among the civil inhabitants. The first prisoners arrived at Magdeburg in the latter part of August, and on September 14 a case of small-pox was observed among them; this was followed by ten more cases in that month. Of the prisoners brought to Magdeburg, the maximum number of whom was no less than 25,450, some 1,092 contracted the disease, and of these 271 died. The largest number of cases was reported in the month of February 1871. Of the garrison, which averaged 11,296 men, there were only 84 cases of the disease (7·4 per cent), and of these 8 died. The first case among the civil inhabitants was reported on November 18, 1870, and this was followed by seven more cases in that month, occurring in various parts of the city. The number of deaths in the year 1871 was 646 (56·4 per 10,000 inhabitants), and in the year 1872 only 45 deaths were reported. From the city of Magdeburg small-pox spread to the surrounding country.

On November 25 a transport of prisoners from Metz, after having been detained for two or three weeks in the badly infected city of Minden, arrived at Quedlinburg; two days later the first case of small-pox occurred among them. A second transport, which arrived on January 31, 1871, likewise brought infected men with it. Among the civil inhabitants small-pox did not become very widespread, and only three civilians succumbed to the disease in the year 1871. In Aschersleben small-pox broke out among the prisoners in January 1871, a few days after their arrival from Mayence, and the number of cases reported in the months of January and February was only twelve. According to Guttstadt, small-pox was already prevalent in the civil population in December, when the disease was given an opportunity to spread to the surrounding country. According to the German Health Report, on the other hand, small-pox did not appear in the city until February, when the proprietor of an inn, which had been converted into a small-pox hospital, contracted it. The total number of deaths in the year 1871 amounted to 53 (31·6 per 10,000 inhabitants). On January 26 and 27, 1871, some 360 prisoners, four of them infected with small-pox, arrived at Halberstadt, having come from Mayence. The number of deaths in the city of Halberstadt in the year 1871 was 29 (11·4 per 10,000 inhabitants). Only those districts in the Governmental District of Magdeburg which bordered on the city of Magdeburg were more severely attacked; Kalbe (43·1 deaths per 10,000 inhabitants), Wanzleben (37·7), and Wollmirstedt (29·2). In addition to these the district of Wernigerode also had a very high small-pox mortality in the year 1871 (70·5 per 10,000). In those districts further away from Magdeburg—Osterburg, Salzwedel, Aschersleben, and Halberstadt—the climax of the small-pox mortality was not reached until the year 1872, whereas in the other districts it was reached in 1871.

In the Governmental District of Merseburg small-pox broke out very severely in the stronghold of Torgau, where in the last part of September and in the first part of December prisoners arrived from Strassburg and Metz, respectively; in both transports, but especially in the second, there were infected men. The first cases of the disease were reported on October 4. Of the prisoners, the maximum number of whom was 9,359, some 603 (64·4 per 1,000) contracted the disease and 128 (21·2 per cent of those who contracted it) died. The epidemic, accordingly, was unusually severe among the prisoners, and it reached its climax in January. In the German garrison, which averaged 3,943 men, there were, all told, 75 cases of the disease (19·0 per 1,000) and five deaths. Among the civil inhabitants the first persons to contract the disease in the last part of November and first part of December were a woman, who was employed as a laundress in the garrison lazaret, her sons, and a woman who had visited the place where the prisoners were confined. The epidemic did not break out until December 22, on which day a single case was reported; on the following day twelve more cases were reported. The total number of deaths was 67 (61·7 per 10,000). Very soon the infection spread throughout the entire vicinity of Torgau, which in the year 1871 had a very high small-pox mortality; by 1872 the disease had almost disappeared from the city.

In Wittenberg, which before the arrival of the prisoners was absolutely free from small-pox, a transport arrived on August 27, and on September 5 the first small-pox patients were taken to the lazaret. Among the Frenchmen the disease did not rage very extensively; of a maximum number of 9,753, only fifty-one (5·2 per cent) contracted the disease and ten succumbed to it. Of the garrison, which averaged 2,845 men, seventeen contracted the disease and two died. Among the civil inhabitants the first case of small-pox was reported on October 3; it was that of a pastor who had been serving as curate among the prisoners. This case was followed by several others, most of the victims being persons who lived in the vicinity of the pastor’s dwelling-place. The pestilence then began to spread rapidly among the civil inhabitants, finally developing into a severe epidemic. There were 768 cases reported, distributed as indicated by the following table:

October (1870)26
November66
December102
January (1871)107
February97
March113
April76
May83
June61
July27
August8
September1

Of those who contracted the disease five died in the year 1870 and 100 died in the following year (86·5 per 10,000 inhabitants). Likewise in the country surrounding Wittenberg small-pox was very widespread in the year 1871.

Among the French prisoners in Halle-on-the-Saale there were twenty-eight cases of small-pox in January and February, and at the same time a few cases of the disease were reported in the regiment that was transferred from Halle to Mülhausen. In the first part of March 1871, cases were reported among the civil inhabitants, and they constituted the beginning of a large epidemic. In the year 1871 there were 195 deaths due to the disease (37·0 per 10,000 inhabitants) and in the year 1872 there were forty-one more deaths.

Generally speaking, small-pox was rather uniformly spread throughout the Governmental District of Merseburg in the year 1871; the districts of Torgau and Wittenberg were the only ones that were attacked with particular severity. In the western part of the governmental district small-pox raged more furiously in 1872 than in 1871.

The city of Erfurt (Governmental District of Erfurt) in the year 1869 had been the scene of a small-pox epidemic, which lasted well into the following year. The last cases of the disease occurring in connexion with this epidemic were reported on August 13, 1870. To be sure, the disease revealed its presence on September 27 and 30 among the French prisoners, who had arrived on August 21, and these cases were followed by many more when a new transport of prisoners arrived from Metz; but of all the prisoners in Erfurt, the maximum number of whom was no less than 12,400, only 203 men (16·4 per cent), all told, contracted the disease, and of these only 28 died. In the garrison, which averaged 4,627 men, there were 25 cases of small-pox and no deaths. On the other hand, in December there began among the civil inhabitants an epidemic which spread rapidly and reached its climax in April 1871, with 244 cases. According to Guttstadt, the number of deaths due to small-pox was 253 (53·9 per 10,000 inhabitants) in the year 1871, and 33 in the year 1872. The epidemic did not come to an end until June 1872.[[271]] In Mülhausen, prisoners from Mayence, where small-pox was prevalent, arrived in the first part of December, and some of them were already infected with the disease. On February 1 the pestilence spread to the civil population, and carried away twenty-five persons in the course of the entire year. Nordhausen was free from small-pox in the summer of 1870; but the disease was twice borne into the city, in October 1870 and in January 1871, by prisoners. The first cases among the civil inhabitants were reported in the latter month, after which they increased rapidly in number. In the year 1870 there were 233 deaths (109·5 per 10,000 inhabitants) due to the pestilence. Except in these two cities of Erfurt and Nordhausen the disease did not become very widespread in the year 1871 in any part of the Governmental District of Erfurt.

Regarding the appearance of small-pox in Brunswick, the Thuringian States, and Anhalt, only a small amount of information is available. In the city of Brunswick a German soldier, who had come from Carignan, contracted the disease in September, and in November and January six Frenchmen were taken sick; two of the latter died. In the garrison, which averaged 1,389 men, there were four cases of small-pox in March and June. According to a manuscript report of the Brunswick Bureau of Statistics, the number of deaths due to small-pox throughout the entire Duchy was 2 in the year 1870, 269 in the year 1871, and 215 in the year 1872. At Gotha a French prisoner suffering from small-pox was left behind in January, and another prisoner in the same transport contracted the disease a few days later; in February there were a few isolated cases in the garrison. At Weimar a German field-soldier suffering from small-pox arrived in February; he infected the woman who took care of him, and presently the disease broke out in the city. In Altenburg two infected sub-officers of the field-army and two Frenchmen, likewise suffering from the disease, were committed to the reserve-lazaret, and shortly afterwards a small epidemic broke out in the garrison. There were ten cases of the disease and no deaths among the Frenchmen, and in the garrison, which averaged 1,178 men, there were eleven cases and one death. Among the civil inhabitants the first to be attacked were a sick-attendant and a journeyman mason; the latter had removed the soot from a stove in a room occupied by small-pox patients.