Wealthy officers and commanders took their doctors with them on military campaigns, and bands of mercenary soldiers paid for their own barber-surgeons. For the common soldier, however, the ratio of men to doctors was probably about 150 to one. Although this ratio might be acceptable in a peaceful village, it was inadequate during warfare. Triage approaches to treatment could leave a soldier with “only” a gunshot wound lying in a filthy field for hours, until infection was unpreventable. On the whole, soldiers shot by guns died more often than those wounded by pikes and similar weapons, but the latter weapons often caused more bleeding and obvious trauma, which had to be treated. Other traumatic conditions in Renaissance warfare were frostbite and freezing—the former causing disfigurement if fingers and toes or a nose and ears had to be amputated, and the latter causing death. Numerous soldiers froze to death while sleeping in the fields around Metz, for example, during the siege of 1552. Unlike in medieval warfare, when armies in the north of Europe usually went home during the winter, Renaissance campaigns became year-round events, especially in siege warfare.
Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe
Also, during an era when microbes were not properly understood, in any large group of people gathered closely together as soldiers are during warfare, epidemic diseases were rampant. Dysentery, sweating fevers, and typhoid were particularly virulent during some campaigns, killing more soldiers than did battle.
World History
