"Captain Harville had never been in good health since a severe wound which he received two years before," (ch. 11)

Presumably in the line of duty...

I have an interesting footnote commentary here.

Persiasion, asserts Joseph Duffy, is pervaded by "symbols of decay" and by "reports of death and illness (the book's toll of dead and of victims of illness and accident would provide a mournful set of statistics on human mortality.)" John Wiltshire declares that "Persuasion is a novel of trauma; of broken bones, broken heads and broken hearts." (Duffy 274, Wiltshire, 165)

I'd not thought about that before. The decline (decay?) of the aristocracy is easily traced, but there are an alarming number of widows and widowers and accidents going on here.