262 MEDICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



ticular attention should be paid to them in other respects. 

 Any one who has accurately scrutinized the different appear- 

 ances of sound health and latent disease can readily distin- 

 guish the eligible recruit. A vivid colour, animated look, 

 firm step and voice, clean tongue, and inoffensive breath, 

 with what is commonly called the white of the eye clear, 

 and without the slightest yellow tinge, are in general very 

 sufficient proofs of good digestion and well-performed vis- 

 ceral secretions ;* and these, with the other requisites, may 

 with propriety entitle the possessor to a passport to the 

 plains of Hindostan. On the other hand, young men 

 who seem sluggish, sallow, with rather tumid bellies, and 

 somewhat bloated countenances, whose movements are lan- 

 guid, and the white of whose eyes has a yellowish or 

 suffused appearance, though they be ever so well grovm, 

 ought to meet with a decided rejection ; for in them there 

 certainly lurks the seed of future disease, which will not 

 be slow to show itself if ever they are exposed to ardent 

 heat in a tropical country. A disposition to hepatic de- 

 rangement, and consequent visceral obstruction, may not 

 unfrequently be discovered early in life, and should never fail 

 to excite a due caution in the medical officers who examino 

 recruits for our army in the East. By rigid observance of 

 these particulars, not only might our European force in that 

 quarter be rendered more certainly healthy, but many fine 

 fellows be kept at home for the defence of the parent state, 

 who would fall victims iu another climate to maladies which 

 their peculiar constitutions are not fitted to withstand. 



In making the foregoing remarks, the writer chiefly had 

 in view the troops of that service to which for many years 

 he had the honour to belong. They are equally applicable, 

 however, to his majesty's regiments, as may be seen by 

 turning to the valuable publication above mentioned, in 

 which'Sir George Ballingall expresses regret on account 

 of the error so frequently committed of selecting boys for 

 the king's service in the East Indies. But we should be in- 

 clined to go farther, and, influenced by feelings of humanity 

 as well as" by a just regard for the public purse, suggest, 

 that when whole corps are ordered to any part of our Indian 

 dominions, they should previously undergo the most minute 



* Maclurg on the Bile, p. 106-204. 



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