A historical survey of epidemics resulting from war, and especially of the incidence of such epidemics in the civil population. After an introductory note and a general consideration of war pestilences, the systematic treatment commences with the Thirty Years' War (1625) and is carried up to the siege of Port Arthur (1904). Three great epidemics, the pestilence which accompanied the Thirty Years' War, the typhus fever in central Europe in 1812 and 1814, and the world-wide epidemic of smallpox which followed the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 receive extended discussion.

Bibliographical references throughout.