208 
THE SANITARY CARE OF THE SOLDIER. 
at Chatham that the proportion allowed to each man was only 300 cubic 
feet, and they made the recommendation that each soldier in barracks 
should receive 600 cubic feet, and that ventilators should be placed in 
the room which would allow the air in that 600 cubic feet of space to be 
changed twice in one hour, so that a soldier might be able to receive 
1200 cubic feet of breathing air in the course of one hour. Now, why 
was this asked for ? Was it by a fluke or chance ? I say that I can 
no more modify my opinion as regards the cubic space for the soldier 
than any gunner here can modify his opinion as to the thickness of the 
parapet as regards the penetration of his shot. It is governed by a 
law. A human being to breathe healthily and well requires 3600 cubic 
feet of air in the course of an hour, and the total “ ration of air " that 
the soldier now receives from the country is only 1200 cubic feet per 
hour, that is to say, far and away below the normal average of a healthy 
man. The result of the old overcrowding of barracks was always 
that it resulted in consumption, phthisis. This consumption, this de¬ 
structive lung disease, was caused by the overcrowded men breathing 
in and out this poisoned air into the room and poisoning the air with 
carbonic acid gas ; and, furthermore, and much worse, by pouring out of 
their lungs in the course of every day 30 grains of organic matter which 
is the waste material of the body. This poisonous atmosphere, which, 
mind, will poison an open wound if exposed to its pernicious influence 
will cause a strong healthy man to sink into ill-health and give him 
consumption, and did in the old day kill off the splendid ante-Crimean 
guardsmen at the rate of 20 per 1000 per annum. Put yourself, then, 
in our position as medical officers, who all of us know this, and who 
are taught at Netley the danger of this poisoned air, and say how can 
I be silent, or how can my officers be silent, or how can you expect me 
to be silent and not write and point it out when anything like over¬ 
crowding occurs ? I say that if I was to be negligent or silent I would 
be as much a traitor to the efficiency of the army as that officer in 
command of an outpost who sees the enemy approaching and is such 
a poltroon and such a traitor as not to report it. To us in the medical 
service, who see the evil results of overcrowding’, there is an enormous 
force driving us onward in the sanitary struggle for the soldier. It is 
not that we may be more humane or more philanthropic than other 
officers, but if I stand in a garrison every morning and see the whole 
sick of that garrison pass through my hands and hear from every 
individual private soldier the reason why he is sick and why he has 
fallen ill, and if I hear from every soldier's wife the reason why she is 
ill, or her child is ill, I say that the force acting upon me is an 
enormous and irresistible force. This is the force, then, which is 
driving us to write and work and, perhaps, bother you in the middle 
of your work for the soldier's sake. An officer, who may be a keen 
gunner and who believes absolutely in his guns and horses, may, by 
reason of his very keenness, forget for a time that behind the gun is 
the man who works the gun, and riding the horse is the man who is 
10,000 times more valuable than the horse. The man is our care, and 
we, hearing his story and seeing his condition, are perpetually urged 
forward on the pathway of sanitary progress for his sake. We are 
