Sick Bodies, Suspicious Places, and Contagious Enemies: Epidemics During Eighteenth-Century Warfare

Alongside the obvious threat of violence, soldiers—particularly in the pre-modern era—represented additional dangers to life and limb that were not so immediately apparent. This was due to the devastating combination of so-called “war plagues” and food shortages, which resulted in significant mortality among both military and civilian populations. Research on this period suggests that limited understandings of infection pathways and inadequate hygiene led more people to perish from infectious diseases during wartime than from the combat itself. Mobile armies often functioned as vectors for epidemics, spreading illness to towns and villages. The status of ordinary soldiers was thus double-edged: while they were highly susceptible to infection due to the hardships of military campaigns, they also became sources of contagion, particularly when concentrated in military hospitals, thus posing health risks to comrades and nearby civilian communities. This article examines this double-edged dynamic—between the endangering and the endangered—through the lens of the First Revolutionary War (1792–1797). It explores key questions: to what extent were military personnel held accountable for the onset of epidemics? To what extent were calls made by physicians and people outside the medical profession for an improvement of the conditions in military hospitals seen as a key means of containing infectious diseases? To what extent were military and political enemies equated with disease?