TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 189 
On Phthisis in the Army. By F. G. P. Netson, F.S.S. 
The Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the sanitary condition of the 
British army, the state of the hospitals, &c., published early in the present year an 
elaborate and most valuable Report, the result of an exceedingly comprehensive 
amount of varied and diversified evidence taken before them. As is already well 
known to the public through the medium of the press, a frightful rate of mortality 
takes place in the ranks of the army while stationed in the United Kingdom; but I 
shall here seek to engage your attention by only a brief recapitulation of the general 
results. 
Asstract A. 
Deaths which would have happened according 
to the mortality in 
England Labourers in 
Actual number of deaths d Out-door the 1 
ae: Wales. occupations. Senta, 
Differ. Differ. Differ. 
No. per cent. No. per cent. No per cent. 
Household Cavalry = 134 | 122 10'1 95 | 40°8 75 77°9 
Dragoon Guards \ _ 705 | 512 37°6 408 79-7 321 | 119°3 
and Dragoons 
Foot Guards = 820 393 | 108°6 314 | 161°1 246 | 233°3 
Infantry of the Line= 2823 | 1472 | 91°8 | 1208 | 133°6 958 | 194°7 
eee 
These figures are certainly very remarkable, and afford a succinct view of the 
relation in which the different results stand to each other. 
In the War-office Report itself a comparison is instituted between the actual 
mortality of the army and that which prevails in twenty-four large towns of England 
and Wales; but such a comparison is obviously at fault, for, as I have elsewhere 
fully shown, the gross mortality, not only of the whole kingdom, but of individual 
towns and districts, is greatly increased by the inclusion of the destitute, the disso- 
lute, and the intemperate, as well as by the presence of many persons following 
occupations and trades of an unusually unhealthy character. Even in the rural 
districts of this country it will be seen, on referring to pp. 53-59 of ‘ Contributions 
to Vital Statistics,’ that the mortality of the sixteen trades referred to in page 58 of 
that work is greatly in excess of the residue of the same districts. 
The military are certainly free from the noxious influences peculiar to many trades 
and occupations. They do not suffer from destitution, nor can they be classed as a 
body with the notoriously intemperate. Every just comparison must, therefore, be 
made with some suck classes as those forming the two last sections of the preceding 
abstract ; but if the comparison be made with the general mortality of England and 
Wales (for the male sex), it will be found that the infantry of the line are subject 
to an increased ratio of mortality of no less than 91°752 per cent. 
If the out-door occupations be made the standard of comparison, per cent. 
there is an excess AMOUNLINE tO .......seeceeeeeeeee Peo phooodtadarnor bese 133°620 
And in respect to labourers in the rural districts, the excess is no less 
POADeatenscnanaedes <cscesae ccccevecececcssecs secveceevecee steaueteetsecesestease? "1'O4- ODS 
being nearly three times the rate of mortality in this branch of the service that is 
found to take place amongst labourers in the rural districts at the corresponding ages. 
_ In Appendix LXXI. of the Report of the Commissioners, as well as in the body 
of the Report itself, it is shown that among various classes exposed to severe night 
duty in the open air, such as the Metropolitan Police Force, and the railway em- 
ployés, and also as otherwise since established in the London Fire Brigade, the rate 
of mortality is somewhat less than that for the country generally at the correspond- 
ing ages. In the same Appendix it is also conclusively shown, as admitted in the 
Report of the Commissioners, that the high rate of mortality in the army cannot be 
