260 MEDICAL observations: 



out of 206 sufferers 160 were under twenty-five years of 

 age." Under the age of twenty-one no soldier should be 

 permitted to proceedlo our possessions in the East. 



But as it is injudicious to despatch to a tropical region 

 recruits who are too voung, so there may be an equal im- 

 propriety in sending "them out at too late a period of hfe. 

 The habits of the animal economy, like other habits once 

 finnly established, cannot be easily or safely altered ; none 

 of the threat organs of the human frame, preparing or cir- 

 culating for a length of years, with a certain energy, a spe- 

 cific quantity of^any fluid, can be suddenly forced to do 

 more or less'without inducing some degree of variation lu 

 the constituent parts of such fluids, if not producing m 

 them a condition actually morbid ; and the same may be 

 said of the different smaller glands and emunctones, all of 

 which are in some measure affected by a change of climate. 

 With the exception of the rapid alteration caused by death 

 or acute disease on the human frame, there is none so great 

 as that which is brought on by a removal from a cold to a 

 torrid region ; and so far as we are beings adapted by habit 

 and constitution to a temperate air, so far is the experiment 

 we make in venturing into tropical climes attended with 

 danger. Yet, however great the revolution which takes 

 place upon reaching a highly-heated atmosphere, so admi- 

 rably are we organized, so nobly fitted for all the purposes 

 of hfe, that, with the necessary care, and at a proper age, 

 comparatively little risk is incurred. No soldier, unless he 

 has been seasoned to a hot climate in other parts of the 

 worid, should be embarked for India after passing the age 

 of thirty-six. Even to that age safety can only be promised 

 to his majesty's regiments, which consist in general of dis- 

 ciplined men, who""have not to undergo the severe drilling 

 to which recruits for the company's sen.'ice are obUged to 

 submit soon after landing, and than which nothing can be 

 more trying to the constitution. We would therefore recom- 

 mend that, in enlisting for regiments in India, a preference 

 should be given to those between twenty-one and thirty- 

 five years old. , , , , 



These observations, it must be remembered, only apply 

 to those whose condition in life does not admit of their pro- 

 curing the comforts and indulgences which the more afflu- 

 ent can command. Private soldiers, not many days after 



