Infections and wars

Sir William Osler highlighted that infectious diseases like typhoid, malaria, cholera, and dysentery have caused more wartime deaths than weapons. Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, significantly reduced these deaths during the Crimean War by improving hospital sanitation, curbing the spread of deadly infections. Her work, supported by her statistical methods like the Rose Diagram, showed that infections were the primary cause of death in wartime hospitals.

Historically, infections have shaped the outcomes of wars, as seen in the European conquest of the Aztecs and Incas, where smallpox devastated indigenous populations. Crowded military conditions, such as those during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic in World War I, have fueled the spread of diseases, often killing more soldiers than combat. Despite advances in sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics, microbial threats persist, with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and vaccine-preventable diseases still endangering soldiers and civilians, especially in disrupted war zones.