Since even in time of peace the close quarters in which soldiers live in barracks greatly favour the outbreak of epidemics, the military authorities constantly watched and profited by these advances in the field of disease-prevention; and with the success of efforts to decrease the prevalence of infectious diseases among the soldiers in time of peace, so also in war-times it became possible to check more thoroughly than ever before the dissemination of these diseases. Hence the number of men carried away by epidemics is much smaller in modern wars than used to be the case. 1. THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR OF 1877–8[304] The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–8, like all former wars with Turkey, was characterized by severe pestilences, which at both seats of the war, the European as well as the Asiatic, were responsible for large numbers of deaths. Typhus fever, which frequently made its appearance in Russia and in the Balkan Peninsula, was once more the disease which made the greatest havoc. In the years preceding the war it had raged in the form of epidemics in several Russian Governments, and it is probable that the Russian army was already infected with it. Erisman states that cases of typhus fever were observed among the soldiers in the thirty-fifth infantry division when it was being assembled in the Government of Kiev; the disease also revealed its presence among the troops when they were mustered at Kishinev (Bessarabia) before the war broke out. In April and May 1877, when the army was advancing toward the Danube under a steady downpour of rain, the number of sufferers from typhus fever, intermittent fever, and dysentery increased considerably. During the siege of Plevna, which lasted 143 days and terminated in the capitulation of the city on December 10, 1877, the prevalence of disease increased still more. The march across the Balkan Peninsula in the winter of 1877–8 made great demands upon the badly nourished Russian troops. The better conditions anticipated in the Balkan lowlands did not show themselves; on the contrary, here began, from the standpoint of sanitation, the most unfortunate part of the campaign, since the retreating Turks had devastated the entire country. The number of typhus-fever patients in the Russian army, which numbered some 411,000 men, increased to 18,049 in the month of February 1878, and of these 7,522 had spotted fever and 1,540 died. The pestilence continued to rage with unbroken severity until May; in June it began to abate. The total number of fever-patients and deaths in the Russian army during its march to the Danube is indicated by the following table: _Patients._ _Deaths._ Typhoid fever 25,088 7,207 Gastric fever 38,363 1,615 Typhus fever 32,451 10,081 Relapsing fever 39,337 4,849