RESULTS IN THE NORTHERN EXPEDITIONS. 275 



Were the same means put in practice, that his ship 

 was brought home, after an absence of four years, 

 Without the loss of a single man by disease ! 



Similar results were obtained by the able com- 

 manders of our more recent expeditions to the 

 Northern Regions. The Fury and Hecla were, at 

 one time, no less than twenty-seven months entirely 

 dependent on their own resources, before scurvy began 

 to make its appearance ; and at the end of 2*H 

 months, both ships returned home (in September, 

 1823) .with the loss of only five men, a result 

 Which, a century ago, could hardly have occurred, 

 and which, even at the present day, is a remark- 

 able indication of the talent and humanity of the 

 officers by whom it was effected. 



Nothing, in fact, could have been better devised 

 than the means practised in these expeditions to 

 preserve the health of the people ; and did my limits 

 permit it, I might illustrate almost every principle 

 in this volume by a reference to its actual efficacy 

 as displayed in these voyages. Not only were the 

 conditions of health attended to as regarded the 

 skin, the muscles, the bones, the lungs, and the 

 digestive organs ; but the health of the all-import- 

 ant nervous system was sedulously provided for by 

 the constant and cheerful occupation of the people 

 in their various duties and amusements ; and so 

 judiciously were these planned, that a spirit of life 

 and activity extremely favourable to the preserva- 

 tion of health was constantly kept up, and had, no 

 doubt, great influence in producing that concord 

 and unity of feeling among them which were so 

 conspicuous amid all their privations. 



In looking forward to a still greater diminution of 

 disease in the human family, it is cheering to fix 

 attention to what has been thus already accom- 

 plished by the hand of authority. Had the same 

 individuals who circumnavigated the globe with 

 Cook, or braved the northern winters with Rosa 



