THE SANITARY CARE OF THE SOLDIER BY 
HIS OFFICER. 
BY 
BRIGADE-SURGEON LIEUT.-COLONEL G. J. H. EVATT, M.D., A.M.S. 
(A Lecture delivered at the Loyal Artillery Institution, Woolivich, 29th January, 1894). 
Colonel C. Trench, E.A., in the Chair. 
The Chairman —Gentlemen, it is hardly necessary, I think, to introduce 
the lecturer to you. I will call upon Colonel Evatt to commence at 
once. 
Brigade-Surgeon Lieut.-Colonel G. J. H. Evatt —Colonel Trench 
and gentlemen, in beginning the lecture I would say that it was not by 
my initiative that I was put forward to deal with this matter. I think 
myself that the wording of the notice to give a lecture implies that the 
lecturer should himself be a master of the subject. X would prefer 
rather to say that we are here having a conference, and if you will 
allow me to be the opener of the conference X think that would be the 
better expression. 
We are met from different branches of the army to contribute our 
various items of information to the one great question of how the soldier 
is to be pushed forward on the road towards health and fitness so that 
the one great thing for which he exists, namely, his fighting power in 
the field, may be more and more developed. I propose, then, this 
evening to deal with the subject in three ways : first, to glance at the 
sanitary history of the army briefly up to the present day; secondly, 
to speak of the sanitary ideals which we specialists, in the medical 
service have before us for the soldier; and, thirdly, to consider how 
far the Executive Commanders of the troops themselves are to co¬ 
operate in this work. 
I would say that all through the last century the army was very 
small in point of strength. There were numbers of regiments con¬ 
tinually being raised for special purposes, and as soon as the campaigns 
for which they were raised were over they were brought home and 
broken up. Nothing is more curious than to trace the history of our 
regiments to the present day ; they have got the names, and sometimes 
the numbers, of regiments that were broken up long before. It was 
not until the outbreak of the old French War at the time of the 
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