At one time I believe disease was the leading cause of death in war. In the Spanish American war more died from disease then wounds suffered in battle.
Explains the shot card.
Yep, you are correct. I believe World War I was the first war (for Americans, anyway) where disease wasn’t the #1 killer of soldiers. Advances in medicine, nutrition and food preservation (bad tinned meats sickened a lot of guys in the Spanish-American War), and so on.
The US Civil War is a good example. There were about 600,000 fatalities on both sides. Only about 175,000 were caused by battle injuries, like being shot. All the others were caused by disease. It was far worse in earlier wars.
I remember my microbiology professor’s comments regarding the high number of deaths in the Civil War that had resulted from bacterial infection on the battlefield.