THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 4 6i 



in private steamships to save machinery from breakage, but not used 

 in the navy until much machinery had been broken. On going back 

 a little, this relative inefficiency of administration is still more strikingly 

 shown: instance the fact that, during the Chinese Expedition of 1841, 

 a mortality, at the rate of three or four per day in a crew of 300, 

 arose from drinking muddy water from the paddy-fields, though, 

 either by boiling it or by filtering it through charcoal, much of 

 this mortality might have been prevented ; instance the fact that, 

 within the memory of living officers (I have it from the mouth of one 

 who had the experience), vessels-of-war, leaving Deptford, filled their 

 casks with Thames-water taken at ebb-tide, which water during its 

 subsequent period of putrefaction had to be filtered through handker- 

 chiefs before drinking and then swallowed while holding the nose ; or 

 instance the accumulation of abominable abuses and malversations and 

 tyrannies which produced the mutiny at Spithead. But, perhaps, of 

 all such illustrations, the most striking is that which the treatment of 

 scurvy shows us. It was in 1593 that sour juices were first recommend- 

 ed by Albertus ; and in the same year Sir R. Hawkins cured his crew 

 of scurvy by lemon-juice. In 1600 Commodore Lancaster, who took out 

 the first squadron of the East India Company's ships, kept the crew 

 of his cwn ship in perfect health by lemon-juice, while the crews of the 

 three accompanying ships were so disabled that he had to send his 

 men on board to set their sails. In 1636 this remedy was again 

 recommended in medical works on scurvy. Admiral Wagner, com- 

 manding our fleet in the Baltic in 1726, again proved it to be a specific. 

 In 1757, Dr. Lind, the physician to the naval hospital at Haslar, col- 

 lected and published, in an elaborate work, these and many other proofs 

 of its efficacy. Nevertheless, scurvy continued to carry off thousands 

 of our sailors. In 1780, 2,400 in the Channel Fleet were affected by 

 it; and in 1795 the safety of the Channel Fleet was endangered by it. 

 At length, in that year, the Admiralty ordered a regular supply of 

 lemon-juice to the navy. Thus two centuries after the remedy was 

 known, and forty years after a chief medical officer of the Government 

 had given conclusive evidence of its worth, the Admiralty, forced 

 thereto by an exacerbation of the evil, first moved in the matter. And 

 what had been the effect of this almost incredible perversity of official- 

 ism ? The mortality from scurvy during this long period had exceeded 

 the mortality by battles, wrecks, and all casualties of sea-life put 

 together ! ' 



How, through military administration, there has all along run, and 

 still runs, a kindred stupidity and obstructiveness, pages of examples 

 might be accumulated to show. The debates pending the abolition 

 of the pui chase-system furnish many; the accounts of life at Alder- 

 shot and of autumn manoeuvres furnish many ; and many might be 

 added in the shape of protests like those made against martinet 



1 See Tweedie's " System of Practical Medicine," vol. v., pp. 62-69. 



