Statistics in regard to gas bacillus infection are relatively rare. It has been possible to gather only a few, yet those few seem to reveal that both its morbidity and mortality lessened very appreciably in the latter years of the great war. I dare only say "seem to reveal," for the reports are both fragmentary and occasionally contradictory. I have selected the following as those most fairly comparable regarding morbidity, mutilation and mortality.
MORBIDITY
Early in 1916, Gross1 had 2,796 wounded men pass through his ambulance, of whom 101 (3.6 per cent.) developed gas gangrene. In late 1916 the same man treated 1,676 wounded men,2 thirty-three of whom (1.9 per cent.) developed gas gangrene. In October, 1918, Sieur and Mercier3 reported that fewer than 0.5 per cent, of the wounded developed gas gangrene in the advanced and intermediate zone.
MORTALITY
Lardennois,4 in 1916, reported 500 cases