THE SANITARY CARE OF THE SOLDIER. 
201 
the way of turn-out, the soldiers were dying in a wretched condition 
in overcrowded and unsanitary barracks. The death-rate of the splendid 
guardsmen in London was something painful ; they were dying mainly 
of consumption at the rate of 20 per 1000 per year, a dreadful rate ; 
that is to say the guardsmen were dying at double the rate of the 
policemen. The policeman working night by night over the city streets 
and doing heavy work was twice as healthy a man as the guardsman 
doing his duty as sentry over the various public buildings. In the 
general infantry the death-rate was about 15 per 1000, and in the 
cavalry it was somewhere about 18 per 1000, while on the nation as 
a whole it was only about 10 per 1000. 
All this bad epoch for the army went on until the crash and disaster 
of the Crimean Campaign, and then the nation for the first time 
woke up to the question of the medical care and sanitation of the 
army; and a Commission was established, called the Barrack Commis¬ 
sion. That Commission went very thoroughly into the whole question 
of the soldier's life and his housing; they published a report, in which 
they showed that the overcrowding of soldiers was most scandalous, 
and that their death-rate was excessive; and, amongst other things, 
they gave power to Medical Officers for the first time, in the year 1858, 
to make sanitary recommendations to Commanding Officers on all mat¬ 
ters referring to health. Although much has been done since 1858, I 
desire to place on record that for 80 years and more before 1858 the 
Medical Officers of the Army had been struggling to develop sanitary 
reforms in the soldier's clothing, feeding, housing, and surroundings, 
but had failed to affect anything, purely from their weak official status 
in the army. If you read the books of Dr. Robert Jackson and others 
which were published last century they seem as though they might 
have been written yesterday, so rational, so common-sense, so up-to-date 
are their ideas as to the above subjects. But the medical service during 
that long peace had no power whatever to make recommendations, and 
although the regimental medical system was existing with so many 
Medical Officers and Surgeons in regiments they had no power to say 
one word as regarded the sanitary protection of the mens' health ; and 
it was not until the year 1858 that the Royal Warrant was issued, to 
which I have referred, and the words of which seem to me so impor¬ 
tant that I quote them here :•— i( The officers of the Army Medical Staff 
are charged not only with the medical care of the sick, the adminis¬ 
tration of the military hospitals both in peace and war and the command 
of the Medical Staff Corps, but with the duty of recommending to General 
and other Officers Commanding, verbally or in writing, any precautionary 
or remedial measures relating to barracks, encampments, garrisons, 
stations, hospitals, transports, diets, dress, drills, and duties which may 
in their opinion conduce to the health of the troops and to the mitiga¬ 
tion or prevention of disease in the army." These sentences form 
paragraph 8 of Part I. of the “ Army Medical Regulations." I hey 
cover the ground, I think, in a very full manner ; but these paragraphs 
were not put into the u Army Regulations " until after the break-down 
in the Crimean War, when public opinion had come to fortify the War 
Minister , in doing so. But you must, of course, remember that in 
