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Table 1 Reported cold injuries in a variety of conflicts throughout history

From: Lessons from history: morbidity of cold injury in the Royal Marines during the Falklands Conflict of 1982

Circa 400 BC

Armenia (Xenophon)

‘Cold’ cause of approximately 6,000 (60%) casualties

218 BC

Hannibal crossing the Alps

19,000 (50%) survived from 38,000

1719

Swedish/Norwegian

3,700 Swedish dead from a force of 5,000; 600 permanently crippled from frostbite

1778

American War of Independence

Up to 10% of casualties in some battles

1812

Napoleonic/Russian campaign

100,000 KIA; 200,000 DNBI (majority from cold injury and hypothermia); 12,000 men from the 12th Division all perished except for 350

1854–1856

Crimean War

2,000 cold injured out of 50,000

1861–1865

American Civil War

15,000 cold injury casualties

1870–1871

Franco/Prussian

1,450 CI

1899–1902

Boer War

‘Many with cold injuries’

1904–1905

Russo/Japanese

‘Staggering numbers’

1912

Balkans

‘Many cold casualties’

1914–1918

World War I

British 115,361; French 79,000; Italians 38,000; Germans (number unknown) but had special hospitals dedicated to treating cold injuries (distinction between freezing and non-freezing injury, ‘Trench Foot’, was first made)

1939–1945

World War II

Western Europe: British 500; Americans 91,000

Italian campaign, winter 1943–1944: British 102 cold injury casualties (ratio 1:45);

Americans 4,560 (ratio 1:4)

At sea, ‘Immersion Foot’ was first described

Russian Front: Germans massive casualties (special cold injury hospitals)

  

Attu (Aleutians): US Marines 1,200 in a 15-day period of conflict with a ratio of 1:1 with battle casualties