Survival rates in Napoleonic wars 'as high as nowadays'

Survival rates for some medical conditions are no better nowadays than they were during the Napoleonic wars, leading scientists said today.

Experts launching a study of whether modern medicine is always good for the patient claim that intervention may even make things worse.

Professor Mervyn Singer, of University College London's Institute of Intensive Care, said that 52 soldiers in the 13th Light Dragoons suffered serious injuries in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, some of which were life-threatening - but only two died. He added: "Despite the non-existence of antibiotics, blood transfusions, life-support machines and other paraphernalia of modern intensive care, most of these soldiers recovered."

At a lecture in London, Professor Singer said he was asking "whether our present understanding is leading us down the wrong path". For example, he said, lowering the temperature of a feverish patient may be harmful.

He and Dr Paul Glynne from UCL's institute of hepatology are beginning a study on organ failure induced by sepsis, which kills about one third of patients in intensive care.