and military service, some of the most accomplished statisticians, sanitarians, army-officers, and statesmen in the United Kingdom. They were authorized to inquire into the habits and duties, the moral and sanitary condition of the army, the amount and kinds of sickness, the causes and frequency of death, and the means of improvement. This commission sat for a long time in London. They called before them fifty-three witnesses, among whom were Sir Benjamin Brodie, the leading surgeon of England, Dr. Andrew Smith, Director-General of the Medical Department of the Army, Thomas Alexander, Inspector-General of Hospitals, Major-General Airey, Quartermaster-General, Dr. John Sutherland, late Crimean Commissioner, and one of the leading authorities of Great Britain in all sanitary matters, Dr. William Farr, the chief and master-spirit of the RegistryOffice, and the highest authority in vital statistics, Colonel Sir Alexander Tulloch, author of the elaborate and valuable reports on the mortality in the British army, Francis G. P. Neison, author of "Contributions to Vital Statistics," Miss Nightingale, and others, surgeons, officers, purveyors, engineers, soldiers, and medical and sanitary scholars.

The commission put forth 10,070 interrogatories relating to everything connected with the army, the persons and the matériel, to officers, surgeons, physicians, health-officers, soldiers, nurses, cooks, clothing, food, cooking, barracks, tents, huts, hospitals, duties, labors, exposures, and privations, and their effects on health and life, in every climate, wherever British troops are stationed or serve, at home and abroad.

The same

inquiry was extended to the armies of other nations, French, Turkish, Russian, etc. To these questions the witnesses returned answers, and statements of facts and opinions, all carefully prepared, and some of great length, and elaborate calculations in respect to the whole military and sanitary science and practice of the age. A large part of the inquiry was directed to the Crimean army, whose con

dition had been, and was then, a matter of the most intense interest. Many of the witnesses had, in various ways, been connected with that war: they were familiar with its history, and their answers revealed much that had not before been known. The result of all this investigation is published in a folio volume of 607 pages, filled with facts and principles, the lamentable history of the past, painful descriptions of the present, and wise suggestions for the future management of the army; and the whole is worthy of the careful attention of all who, as projectors, leaders, or followers, have anything to do with the active operations of war.

The Crimean War has this remarkable interest, not that the suffering of the troops and their depreciation in effective power were greater than in many other wars, but that these happened in an age when the intelligence and philanthropy, and even the policy of the nation, demanded to know whether the vital depression and the loss of martial strength were as great as rumor reported, whether these were the necessary condition of war, and whether anything could be done to lessen them. By the investigations and reports of commissions, officers, and others, the internal history of this war is more completely revealed and better known than that of any other on record. It is placed on a hill, in the sight of all nations and governments, for their observation and warning, to be faithful to the laws of health in providing for, and in the use of, their armies, if they would ob‐ tain the most efficient service from them.

WANT OF SANITARY PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.

THERE are, and have been, faultsgrievous, destructive, and costly faultsin all connected with armies, from the Governments at the head, down through all grades of officers, to the men in the ranks: they are faults of theory and faults of practice,-of plan in those who direct, and of self-management in those whose whole duty is to obey. The root of this

is the failure to fully understand and count the cost, and to prepare to meet it as men generally do in the management of their common affairs. In civil life, when prudent men intend to effect any purpose by the aid of motive power, whether of water, steam, horse, or other kind, they carefully consider the means of generating that power, and the best and saf est ways of applying and expending it. They include this in their plans, and make provision accordingly. Precisely determining the extent of the purpose they design to effect, and the amount of force that is and will be needed, they make their arrangements to provide or generate and maintain so much as long as they intend to do the work. During the whole process, they carefully guard and treasure it up, and allow none to be wasted or applied to any other than the appointed purpose. But in the use and management of the vital machines, the human bodies, by which the purposes of war are to be accomplished, nations are less wise. There are few, perhaps no records of any Government, which, in creating, maintaining, and operating with an army, has, at and during the same time, created and established the never-failing means of keeping the machinery of war in the best working order, by sustaining the health and force of the men in unfailing fulness.

War is carried on by a partnership between the Government and soldiers, to which the Government contributes money and directing skill, and assumes the responsibility of management, and the soldiers contribute their vital force. In the operation of this joint concern, both the money of the nation and the lives of the men are put at risk. Although, by the terms of the contract, the Government is presumed to expend its money and the soldiers' vital force to the extent that may be necessary to effect the objects of the association, it has no right to do this for any other purpose or on any other condition. It may send the men to battle, where they may lose in wounds or in death a part or all that they have contributed; but it has no right, by any negli

gence or folly on its own part or in its agents, to expend any of the soldiers' health or strength in hunger, nakedness, foul air, miasma, or disease. There is a glory attached to wounds, and even to death, received in a struggle with the enemies of one's country, and this is offered as a part of the compensation to the warrior for the risk that he runs; but there is no glory in sickness or death from typhus, cholera, or dysentery, and no compensation of this kind comes to those who suffer or perish from these, in camp or military hospital.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CIVIL AND MILITARY LIFE.

MILITARY life, with the labors, exposures, and circumstances of war, differs widely from civil life. The social and domestic machinery of home spontaneously brings within the reach of families the things that are needful for their sustenance, comfortable for their enjoyment, and favorable to their health. But this self-acting machinery follows not the soldier through his campaigns. Everything he needs or enjoys is to be a matter of special thought, and obtained with a special effort and often with difficulty. Much that was very comfortable and salutary in civil life must be given up in the camp. The Government is the purveyor for and the manager of the army; it undertakes to provide and care for, to sustain and nourish the men. But, with all its wisdom, power, and means, it is not equal to the thousand or thousands of housekeepers that cared and provided for these men when at home; and certainly it does not, and probably cannot, perform these domestic offices as well and as profitably for the soldiers as their natural providers did. Nevertheless, the Government is the sole provider for the army, and assumes the main responsibility of the physical condition of its members.

Starting with the very common belief that the human body has an indefinite power of endurance, or, if it suffer from

disease, or fall in death, it is from causes beyond man's control,-seeing, also, that it is impossible to carry the common means of sustaining life into the camp, Governments seem willing to try the experiment of requiring their men to do the hard work of war without a certain, full supply of sustenance. They expect from the army the largest expenditure of force, but sometimes give it the smallest means and poorest conditions of recuperating it.

The business of war is not constant and permanent, like the pursuits of peace. It therefore comes to most managers as a new and unfamiliar work, to which they can bring little or no acquaintance from experience. They enter upon untried ground with imperfect knowledge of its responsibilities and dangers, and inadequate conceptions of the materials and powers with which they are to operate. They therefore make many and some very grave mistakes, every one of which, in its due proportion, is doubly paid for in drafts on the nation's treasury and on the soldiers' vital capital, neither of which is ever dishonored.

Military life is equally new to the soldier, for which none of his previous education or experience has fitted him. He has had his mother, wife, sister, or other housekeeper, trained and appointed for the purpose, to look after his nutrition, his clothing, his personal comfort, and, consequently, his health. These do not come without thought and labor. The domestic administration of the household and the care of its members require as much talent, intelligence, and discipline as any of the ordinary occupations of men. Throughout the civilized world, this responsibility and the labor necessary for its fulfilment absorb a large portion of the mental and physical power of women.

When the new recruit enters the army, he leaves all this care and protection behind, but finds no substitute, no compensation for his loss in his new position. The Government supposes either that this is all unnecessary, or that the man in arms has an inspired capacity or an

instinctive aptitude for self-care as well as for labor, and that he can generate and sustain physical force as well as expend it. But he is no more fitted for this, by his previous training and habits, than his mother and wife are for making shoes or building houses by theirs. Nevertheless he is thrown upon his own resources to do what he may for himself. The army-regulations of the United States say, "Soldiers are expected to preserve, dis tribute, and cook their own subsistence"; and most other Governments require the same of their men. Washing, mending, sweeping, all manner of cleansing, arrangement and care of whatever pertains to clothing and housekeeping, come under the same law of prescription or necessity. The soldier must do these things, or they will be left undone. He who has never arranged, cared for, or cooked his own or any other food, who has never washed, mended, or swept, is expected to understand and required to do these for himself, or suffer the consequences of neglect.

The want of knowledge and training for these purposes makes the soldier a bad cook, as well as an indiscreet, negligent, and often a slovenly self-manager, and consequently his nutrition and his personal and domestic habits are neither so healthy nor so invigorating as those of men in civil life; and the Government neither thinks of this deficiency nor provides for it by furnishing instruction in regard to this new responsibility and these new duties, nor does it exercise a rigid watchfulness over his habits to compel them to be as good and as healthy as they may be.

MUCH SICKNESS DUE TO ERRORS OF GOVERNMENT.

WHATEVER may be the excess of sickness and mortality among soldiers over those among civilians, it is manifest that a great portion is due to preventable causes; and it is equally manifest that a large part of these are owing to the neg ligence of the Government or its agents,

the officers in command or the men themselves, in regard to encampments, tents, clothing, food, labors, exposures, etc.

The places of encampment are usually selected for strategic purposes, or military convenience, and the soldiers are exposed to the endemic influences, whatever they may be. In some localities these influences are perfectly salubrious; in others they are intensely destructive. Malaria and miasms offer to the unpractised eye of the military officer no perceptible signs of their presence. The camp is liable to be pitched and the men required to sleep in malarious spots, or on the damp earth, or over a wet subsoil, exposed to noisome and dangerous exhalations from which disease may arise. Pringle says, that, in 1798, the regiment which had 52 per cent. sick in two months, and 94 per cent. sick in one season, were cantoned on marshes

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whence noxious exhalations emanated." * "Another regiment encamped where meadows had been flowed all winter and just drained, and half the men became sick." Lord Wellington wrote, August 11, 1811,"Very recently, the officer commanding a brigade encamped in one of the most unwholesome situations, and every man of them is sick."† One of our regiments encamped at Worcester, Massachusetts, on the Agricultural Society's grounds, where the upper soil was not dry and the subsoil was wet. The men slept in tents on the ground, consequently there were thirty to forty cases of disordered bowels a day. The surgeon caused the tents to be floored, and the disease was mitigated. The Eleventh Massachusetts Regiment were encamped on a wet soil at Budd's Ferry, in Maryland. In a week, thirty cases of fever appeared. Dr. Russell, the surgeon, ordered the camp to be removed to a dry field, and the tents to be floored with brush; no new cases of fever appeared afterward. Moltka says that "the Russian army which suffered so terribly and fatally in 1828 and 1829 was badly clothed and badly nourished, and in no way protected against Diseases of the Army, p. 59. ↑ Despatches.

the climate of the Danubian Provinces, and especially of Bulgaria, where the temperature varies from 58° in the day to 29° at night, and where the falling dew is like a fine and penetrating rain." *

Lord Wellington was a sagacious observer and a bold speaker. His despatches to his Government frequently mention the errors of those who should provide for the army, and the consequent sufferings of the soldiers. November 14, 1809, he says, "In the English army of 30,000 men, 6,000 are sick." "Want of proper food increases sickness." "With nothing but water for drink, with meat, but no salt, and bread very rarely for a month, and no other food; consequently, few, if any, were not affected with dysentery." Again he writes, "Men cannot perform the labors of soldiers without food. Three of General Park's brigade died of famine yesterday, on their march; and above a hundred and fifty have fallen out from weakness, many of whom must have died from the same cause." August 9, 1809, he wrote to Lord Castlereagh, "No troops can serve to any good purpose, unless they are regularly fed. It is an error to suppose that a Spaniard, or any man or animal of any country, can make an exertion without food." In February, 1811, he wrote, "The Portuguese army of 43,000 or 44,000 men has about 9,000 sick, which is rather more than a fifth. This is caused by want of proper and regular food, and of money to purchase hospital-stores. If this be continued, the whole army will be down, or must be disbanded."

The British army in Spain suffered from want of clothing as well as of food. The Duke, who did not intend to be misunderstood, nor believe that this was without somebody's fault, wrote, November 3, 1810, to General Fane, "I wish it were in my power to give you well-clothed troops or hang those who ought to have given them clothing."

The diaries of the medical officers in the Crimean army, quoted in the “Med

*Boudin, Traité de Géographie et de Statistique Médicales, Tom. II. p. 289.

ical and Surgical History" of that war, already referred to, are full of similar complaints, and these are supported by Dr. Lyons's "Pathological Report." One says, "Some of the camps were very injudiciously chosen." "The men were very much weakened," "unable to undergo any fatigue," even "to carry their knapsacks." "At Balaklava, they built their huts on a very unhealthy site." Sir John Hall, Inspector-General of Hospitals, referring to this, said, "I protested against it, in the strongest way I could, but without effect; and the consequence was that shortly after the men had spotted fever."* Dr. Hanbury says, "November, 1854. Health of the army rapidly deteriorated from defective diet, harassing duties, hardships, privations, and exposures to the inclement season.' "Cholera increased; cold, wet, innutritious and irritating diet produced dysentery, congestion and disorganization of the mucous membrane of the bowels, and scurvy." January, 1855, he says, "Fever and bowel affections indicated morbid action; scurvy and gangrene indicated privation and exposures."

The surgeon of the Thirty-Fourth Regiment writes: "November, 1854. Cholera broke out. It rained constantly. Troops had no other protection from the damp ground than a single wet blanket." "Without warm clothing, on short allowance of provisions, in want of fuel." "The sanitary condition of the regiment deteriorated rapidly: 56 per cent. of the men admitted to the hospital."

Forty-First Regiment, November and December. "No respite from severe duties; weather cold and wet; clothing illadapted for such climate and service; disease rapidly increased; 70 per cent. of the men in the hospital in two months."

Thirty-Third Regiment, December,

cent. admitted to the hospital in this month."

Twentieth Regiment. "The impoverished condition of the blood, dependent on long use of improper diet, exposure to wet and cold, and want of sufficient clothing and rest, had become evident.” "Scurvy, diarrhoea, frost-bite, and ulceration of the feet followed."

First Regiment. "December, 1854. Scarcely a soldier in perfect health, from sleeping on damp ground, in wet clothing, and no change of dress; cooking the worst; field-hospital over-crowded." “January, 1855. Type of disease becoming more unequivocally the result of bad feeding, exposure, and other hardships."

Thirtieth Regiment. "Duties and employments extremely severe; exposure protracted; no means of personal cleanliness; clothing infested with vermin; since Nov. 14, short allowance of meat, and, on some days, of biscuit, sometimes no sugar, once no rice; food sometimes spoiled in cooking; tents leaked; floors and bedding wet; sanitary efficiency deteriorated in a decided manner."

These quotations are but samples of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of similar statements, showing the immediate connection between privations, exposures, and hardships, and depression of life and abundant disease.

Dr. Sutherland went through all the camps, and makes similar statements. "The damp, unventilated, and undrained huts, in some parts of the camp, produced consequences similar to those in cellardwellings at home," — that is, typhus and typhoid diseases. "The half-buried huts of the Sardinian camp furnished a large proportion of fever cases among their occupants." "That beautiful village of Balaklava was allowed to become a hotbed of pestilence, so that fever, dysentery, and cholera, in it and its vicinity and on the ships in the harbor, were abundant.” “Filth, manure, offal, dead carcasses, had been allowed to accumulate to such an extent, that we found, on our arrival, in March, 1855, it would have