THE SANITARY CARE OP THE SOLDIER. 
207 
hour in the morning and keeping them out for such-and-such a time, 
and then the men coming in swarms to me sick in the evening because 
they have had no food or no proper food, and that it causes me great 
trouble ; that I have requested him to consider the matter and asked 
him if he could modify it, but that he says it is not possible; and then 
I beg the Principal Medical Officer to consider the matter, and if he 
concurs with my views I beg him to move the General Officer Com¬ 
manding whether he can order the Commanding Officer to do so-and-so. 
Then the matter passes out of my hands and lies between the District 
Principal Medical Officer and the General Officer, and they discuss the 
matter. The General Officer may concur and order the suggestion to 
to be carried out, or may not concur and the whole matter falls for a 
time into abeyance. These recommendations may refer to any possible 
matter in the wide range of sanitary duties. 
From the various weekly returns compiled by the Sanitary Medical 
Officers and myself the Sanitary Officer of the garrison makes out 
every quarter a quarterly sanitary return dealing with every possible 
sanitary and health question; referring to the healthiness of the 
barrack-room, the overcrowding, the water supply, the latrine arrange¬ 
ments, the clothing, the drills, the cooking, the food, and everything. 
And this report, together with the remarks of the Principal Medical 
Officer of the District, go in one report up to London to the Director- 
General of the Medical Department, and the latter then, as head of the 
medical service, considers the reports with his sanitary staff in London, 
and advises the Commander-in-Chief as to what he considers should 
be done. At the end of each year a Blue Book is published, dealing 
with the health and sanitary condition of the army, and this is sent to 
the War Minister, and by him printed and presented to the Houses of 
Parliament. It embodies the statistics of the sickness of the army 
and the sanitary reports of the Principal Medical Officers of Districts; 
but I do not see in this Blue Book the final opinions of the Director- 
General of the Army Medical Department on the health of the army 
as a whole. The Blue Book contains the reports of the Principal 
Medical Officers of the Districts throughout the Empire, which the 
Director-General simply embodies and forwards on to the War Minister, 
and that official to Parliament. I think myself that it would be a great 
thing if it were possible that the Director-General in London, who has 
the enormous benefit of receiving the reports of the Principal Medical 
Officers all over the world, should give a summing-up on the various 
sanitary matters that are put before him for the information of Parlia¬ 
ment. This is an outline, I say, of how the sanitary side of the army 
works as regards its organisation from the sanitary officer of a battery 
up to the Director-General and the War Minister. 
I would now come back from these general remarks to the absolute 
details of sanitary matters. Let us begin with the barrack accommo¬ 
dation of the soldier. I told you that in 1858, after the break-down 
in the Crimean War of 1854-55, a great Commission sat, called the 
Sanitary Commission, and made certain recommendations. They made 
a recommendation that every soldier in barracks should be allowed 600 
cubic feet of air space. They found when they examined the barracks 
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