Very soon they had dangerous symptoms: abdominal pain, nausea
and vomiting followed by lachrymation from the protruding and inflamed
eyes. They fell down senseless, had liquid and highly offensive evacuations
and died, in spite of all medical aid, in six hours. On the abdomen, the
neck, the chest and especially on the feet of the corpses of these men
there were gangraenous spots of different sizes, a plain proof that the
acute inflammation, gangraene and putrefaction had been caused by the
excessive irritation of the extremely weak body. Circumstances forbade
necropsy in these cases.
Among different publications on the medical history of Napoleon's campaign
in 1812, which I happened to find, was a dissertation of Marin Bunoust,
"Considerations generales sur la congelation pendant l'ivresse observee en
Russie en 1812." Paris, 1817 (published, therefore, three years before
publication of von Scherer's dissertation), in which the author wishes to
show that the physiological effect of drunkenness on the organism is
identical with that of extreme cold.
Von Scherer, after the hospital of Strizzowan had been evacuated, again
joined his regiment. The French army in forced marches pursued the enemy on
the road to Moscow over Ostrowno, Witepsk and Smolensk. Dysentery did not
abate. In the hospitals of Smolensk, Wiasma and Ghiat, von Scherer found,
besides the wounded from the battles of Krasnoe, Smolensk and Borodino, a
great number of dysentery patients; many died on the march.
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