“In our Spanish Army we had:
170,000 men,
156,000 hospital admissions in three months,
3,976 dead.
“The remainder were mustered out, most of them, in shrunken and shriveled condition which the reader probably remembers. Our Army of Invasion numbered 20,000; in 1908 there were 24,000 pensioners; of these 24,000, over 19,000 are invalids and survivors of the war; and there are over 18,000 claims pending.”
Here is Theodore Roosevelt’s testimony:[[95]]
“Our army [in Cuba] included the great majority of the regulars, and was, therefore, the flower of the American force.... Every officer other than myself except one was down with sickness at one time or another.... Very few of the men indeed retained their strength and energy ... there were less than fifty per cent. who were fit for any kind of work.”
Disease as a destroyer appears in the data furnished by C. Goltz, a few lines of which interesting facts run thus:[[96]]
“It is horrible to see trains packed full with sick soldiers sent away from the army.... The loss from sickness is almost incredible, and one example is sufficient to prove that these losses may put all success at stake. The sanitary conditions of the German army in France in 1870 was very favorable; there were no dangerous infectious diseases. Nevertheless, 400,000 men were entered at the hospitals during the campaign, in addition to those dangerously wounded.”
Anitchkow thus testifies:[[97]]