The terrors of the bombardment had a very disastrous effect upon the inhabitants of the city, since it compelled them to live in damp, unhealthy, infected cellars. Not until the latter part of December did the epidemic begin to abate and to lose, at the same time, its virulent character; the arrival of very cold weather, as well as the diminution of the number of people, and the fact that the infection had practically run its course among the inhabitants and the garrison, were at least partly responsible for this abatement; furthermore, there was now less crowding, and it became possible to establish better order.
The lack of system in the French lazarets is shown by the fact that the authorities were never once able to give an account of the number of persons that died in them. From grave-diggers’ records and church registers Richter managed to compile the following table of statistics indicating the number of deaths:[[338]]
| French soldiers. | Saxon soldiers. | Civil inhabitants. | Total. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January-August (1813) | 222 | |||
| September | 1,107 | 64 | 43 | 1,214 |
| October | 4,803 | 36 | 66 | 4,905 |
| November | 8,209 | 3 | 228 | 8,440 |
| December | 4,886 | 258 | 5,144 | |
| January 1–10 (1814) | 649 | 83 | 732 | |
| January 11–31 | 314 | 91 | 405 | |
| February | 400 | 79 | 479 | |
| March | 100 | 52 | 152 |
According to this table there died, between September and January 10, 19,654 French soldiers, 103 Saxon soldiers, and 678 civilians. But Richter says in regard to the above figures: ‘There is no doubt, however, that the figures pertaining to the French soldiers are much too small, since they include only those that were actually buried by the grave-diggers in public burial-grounds. All those who died in private houses, in the tête-de-pont, in the various forts, in the lunettes, or in any of the outworks of the fortress are not included; their number was by no means small, and many of them were buried unceremoniously by citizens or by their comrades, while large numbers of bodies were left lying in the open.’ In the month of May it was impossible to find a grave-digger to bury the heaps of corpses, which were consequently thrown in masses into the Elbe; this of course interfered with the operation of the floating mills along the river. Nor are the bodies disposed of in this way included in the above table. Accordingly, Richter estimates the total number of deaths among the French soldiers at between 29,000 and 30,000 men.
The pestilence continued to rage even after the surrender of the stronghold, and did not begin to abate until the latter part of January. Although the Prussian troops were not quartered in the city, and entered it only in the day-time, the pestilence nevertheless spread to them and carried away more than 300 men in the course of three months. Not until the end of February did the pestilence among the civil inhabitants begin to abate; the mortality was still high in March, but in April it sank to normal again.
According to Richter, two-thirds of the patients in the military lazaret were suffering from ‘colliquative, dysenteric diarrhoea’, and only one-third from ‘true typhus’, whereas among the civil inhabitants the latter was by far the more common. There were two forms of diarrhoea observed; it appeared either as an acute attack of dysentery, which rarely lasted longer than two weeks and then terminated in either death or recovery, or else as a chronic, dysenteric diarrhoea, which caused general weakness and finally death.
Typhus fever began always with a frequently recurring chill, and with a violent headache and general indisposition; this was followed by a stage of dry fever, accompanied by stupor, dizziness, and often wild delirium; as a rule the first few days were characterized by obstinate constipation, and bleeding at the nose was very common. Later on, somnolence manifested itself, and the original constipation changed to a copious, fetid diarrhoea. Petechiae appeared frequently, but not invariably; at first small, bright-red spots showed themselves, and later on they assumed a darker colour, grew larger, and finally turned black. Their size varied considerably; sometimes they were the size of a pin-head, while often they were from one to one-and-a-half centimetres in diameter. Most of the patients died between the tenth and fifteenth days; but if the disease progressed favourably, signs of improvement usually showed themselves suddenly on the fourteenth or fifteenth day; as a rule, convalescence was of short duration.
The two forms of ‘nerve-fever’ mentioned by Richter doubtless include various other diseases. That many cases of typhus fever were among the fever patients may be inferred from the fact that the disease was very prevalent among the French troops, and also from Richter’s description; he expressly mentions the sudden appearance of the disease, the initial chill, the remission of the fever in the third week, and the rapid convalescence—all of them characteristic signs of typhus fever. Moreover, typhoid fever doubtless prevailed more or less extensively. Richter describes ‘a pituitous modification of typhus’, with a lingering development;[[339]] the crisis always came late, frequently not until the sixth or seventh week, and was invariably uncertain, so that convalescence was very slow and often interrupted by relapses. Deuteropathic complications were of almost regular occurrence. There can be no doubt that we have to do here with a good description of typhoid fever, which revealed its presence chiefly among the newly-conscripted young French soldiers.
Regarding the enormous loss of life caused by the epidemic in Torgau, Richter, who was a Prussian military physician, says: ‘The devastation that it caused among the Frenchmen, and unfortunately among the inhabitants of the ill-fated city as well, was indeed terrible; in fact there is happily scarcely a parallel to it in the history of the world. One may safely say that the misery experienced by the French troops throughout the entire course of that disastrous war reached its climax inside the walls of Torgau. The French lazarets in the city represented scenes of horror such as repel human nature, and such as one must actually witness in order to appreciate fully their dreadfulness.’