PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 271 



PRESERVATION OF HEALTH ON BOARD OF SHIP, AND 

 AFTER ARRIVAL IN INDIA. 



It may, we think, be safely said, that, generally speaking, 

 young men are healthy on board of ship during their way to 

 India,— partly owing to the great care in supplying proper 

 food, and partly to their not being exposed to the vicissitudes 

 of weather or intemperate living. The chief inconvenience 

 experienced is constipation, and this is occasioned in two 

 ways,— the want of the same quantity of vegetable aliment 

 as on shore, and the increased perspiration, the natural 

 consequence of entering the warmer latitudes. Young men 

 are very apt to treat this complaint lightly. Suffering for 

 days together little or no uneasiness, they pay no regard to 

 it till incalculable mischief is done. If no medical officer is 

 in immediate charge of the recruits going to India, it ought 

 to be the duty of the surgeon of the ship, not simply to pre- 

 scribe for those who request it, hit daily to see every young 

 man on board, and to acquaint himself with the actual state of 

 each. In this way, and in this way alone, can disease be 

 arrested in its commencement, and many bad consequences 

 avoided. It should also be the care of the medical officer to 

 see that the youths are kept perfectly clean by frequent bath- 

 ino-s in salt water, so that there may be no obstruction to 

 free perspiration, on which, we repeat, so much depends, 

 while approaching or on reaching the torrid regions. There 

 need hardly be urged here the necessity of exercise to main- 

 tain good health. In crowded ships it is sometimes difficult 

 to obtain this. One of the easiest and, perhaps, one of the 

 best modes is to get the young soldiers to assist the sailors 

 in performing such naval duties on deck as they can execute, 



exercise being taken at hours when there is least chance 



of injurious consequences from the heat. 



Most of these cautions will apply to the treatment of 

 young soldiers on their first reaching the Indian continent, 

 with the following additional hints : — The strictest rules 

 ought to be enforced regarding the use of fruits, vegetable 

 die", and spirituous liquors. The two first, if partaken of 

 injudiciously by the new comers, are a certain source of evil ; 

 indulgence in the last is a never-ending bane to both old and 

 young. Exposure to the heat of the sun rqust be avoided 

 as much as circumstances will permit, as it is a powerful 

 exciting cause of disease. _ On this account it is safest to 



