Typhus fever broke out in the form of very severe epidemics during the long struggle of the French in Spain and Portugal in the years 1808–14, since here the French army suffered terribly in consequence of unremitting hardships, the scanty supply of food, and the poor hospital arrangements. While in the Spanish Peninsula the French army is said to have lost 300,000 men in consequence of disease, and 100,000 men in consequence of the enemy’s arms. A particularly severe epidemic raged in Saragossa when that city was besieged by the French in the months of June, July, and August 1808, and again in the months of December-February, 1808 and 1809; of 100,000 inhabitants 54,000 succumbed to typhus fever, and of 30,000 soldiers 18,000 fell victims to the same disease, so that the city was forced to capitulate.[100] In the year 1810 yellow fever caused great devastation in the southern part of Spain, attacking Cadiz, Cartagena, and Gibraltar; in 1811 it raged furiously in the provinces of Murcia and Valencia,[101] but the epidemic was confined to the coast. From Spain typhus fever was frequently conveyed by transports of prisoners to France; the border districts through which the prisoners passed were the first to be attacked, as, for instance, the town of Dax (near Bayonne). Ozanam says:[102] ‘La France en ressentit les effets depuis les Pyrénées jusqu’aux environs de Paris, sur toutes les routes suivies par les prisonniers espagnols, et l’Angleterre en fut infestée au retour des débris de ses troupes du même pays. En France la ville de Dax, frontière de l’Espagne, fut une des premières à éprouver les ravages des maladies épidémiques, qui accompagnent toujours les armées. La situation basse et marécageuse, jointe à l’encombrement de son hôpital par des militaires atteints du typhus nosocomial, ne tarda pas à favoriser la propagation de la contagion, et elle fut bientôt transmise aux environs. Les prisonniers espagnols y contribuèrent encore, et le caractère contagieux de la maladie ne fut pas plus douteux, lorsqu’on vit les employés au service des hôpitaux et à celui du transport de ces militaires en être tous atteints.’ (France felt the effects (of the disease) all along the routes followed by the Spanish prisoners—from the Pyrenees to the environs of Paris, while England was infected by the remnants of its troops when they returned from France. The town of Dax, situated near the border between France and Spain, was one of the first places to experience the ravages of the epidemic diseases which always accompanied the armies. Its low, marshy situation, together with the fact that its hospital was overcrowded with soldiers infected with nosocomial typhus, greatly favoured the propagation of the contagion, which soon spread throughout the vicinity. The Spanish prisoners also helped to spread it, and the contagious character of the disease was no longer questionable when the attendants at the hospitals, as well as the