Health status of soldiers in the Lika Regiment of the Croatian Military Frontier between 1788 and 1850

The Lika Regiment was part of a unique military institution – the Austrian Military Frontier (Militärgrenze, Vojna krajina) – that existed along the entire boundary with the Ottoman Empire from the first quarter of the 16th century until 1881. The original purpose of this frontier establishment was to protect the Habsburgs from the Ottoman attacks. In the course of time, it became a reservoir of cheap and good soldiers governed by military officials and military law, without civil authority. All frontiersmen capable of bearing arms were part of an ever-ready military force who in return enjoyed special privileges as free peasant-soldiers (land fiefs and religious freedom). In order to gain personal and bioanthropological data of all enlisted men from the Lika Regiment born between 1770 and 1830, we have collected and processed materials from the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb and Austrian State Archives in Vienna. In this study, the secular change in height and disease occurence in 530 adult soldiers (17+ year- olds), who served in the Frontier administration, were analyzed in the context of natural hazards and war activities. The analysis showed a significant, non-linear increase in height. A decline in height detected in the 1790-1799 birth cohort correlates with the participation of the Lika Regiment in the Austro- Turkish War (1788-1791) and the War of the First Coalition (1792-1797), plus periods of hunger caused by long-term winters (1791). The health status of these soldiers was exceptional: only 6.4% had some health problems (the most frequent were respiratory tract problems, hernia and tuberculosis), 17.6% of which ended fatally (caused by oedema, typhus, dysentery and tuberculosis). This preliminary analysis will contribute to our knowledge on the life and health of men from the Lika Regiment soldiers.