Епидемията от едра шарка и Френско-пруската война (1870 - 1871)
The smallpox epidemic and the Franco-Prussian War (1870 - 1871)

Summary/Abstract: One of the deadliest smallpox pandemics in European history, the spread of the disease in 1870 - 1875 was associated with the favoraЫe conditions, due to infected French POW's being in contact with German civilian population. Overall death toll of the pandemic was five hundred thousand Europeans. The main focus of this study is the effect of the smallpox pandemic in the French army during the war with Prussia in 1870 - 1871, а matter that continues to lay in obscurity. New research in the field of history of medicine and valuaЫe historical sources suggest that smallpox had а devastating impact on the French army during the war, since most of its soldiers were without vaccines against the Variola virus. Unlike the French, the Prussian army had compulsory vaccination since 1834 and German soldiers were protected from the illness throughout the conflict. The staggering downfall ofFrance in the war that led to the Unification of Germany is explained not bу the strategical and tactical abilities of the Prussian army, but rather Ьу the effect that the illness had on the French.

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