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Show W uu M WOUNDED GO BACK TO THE TRENCHES. Yesterday's Associated Press dis- ', patches brought a summary of Prus- ' sian war losses, placing the casualty j '' lists at 2,377.000. At this ratio, all of J i Germany would show a war loss of nearly four million men. These fig- ' ures are very large and the thought they inspire is that Germany must be getting very close to a condition of exhaustion. But casualty lists are I somewhat misleading because a very ' ' big percentage of the men wounded 1 are recovering and going back to the ! front. j , "German surgeons, according to re- li cent official figures tor the-first year I of the war." says the Literary Digest, "send nine out of every ten wounded men back to the 'front ready for ac 1 jw tive service, while only twelve men UW out GVerv 1000 die of their wounds. M The knowledge of this, as Mr Leslie LI D. Bissell remarks in a letter from 1:1 Munich to the New York Evening c I Post, naturally has a reassuring effect on the common soldier, and helps sustain sus-tain the morale of the armlos. Behind Be-hind the bare statistics quoted by Mr. Bissell there is recorded a monumental monument-al achievement in modern surgery-rapid surgery-rapid healing of wounds and quick use of stiffened Joints and Injured muscles. Orthopedy has been developed devel-oped during the past year to an extent ex-tent hitherto unknown.' The figures, which include the wounded on both West and East fronts, take account first of 'the increasing percentage of wounded who become able to resume active service, and second, the monthly month-ly decreasing death-rate of the wound, cd.' During the first month of 'tke war August, 1914 it seems, 'of every 100 wounded soldiers, S4.S became again capable of active service at the front, 3 died in tho hospitals, 12.2 were either unfit for service or were sent home on furlough,' This, wo read, 'was considered by tho army surgeons a wonderful record, especially especi-ally as It was the first experience in handling such large numbers of wounded men, and also taking into consideration the fact that most of the woundB are made by exploding shrapnel.' But there followed a 'steady record of improvement'." |