THE SANITARY CARE OF THE SOLDIER. 
211 
and with thoroughly sound results. In studying the above death-rates 
of the army we should note that consumption caused 67 per cent, of all 
the deaths in the Household Cavalry during the pre-Crimean period, 50 
percent, of the deaths in the cavalry of the line, and 57 per cent, of the 
deaths in the infantry were from consumption, a probably preventable 
disease caused or greatly developed by overcrowding in the barracks. 
At the present time the death-rate of the Guards has fallen from the 
20 per 1000 per annum, that bad standard of old years, until, in 1890, 
it has fallen to 9*88 per 1000, and you will find in the A.M.D. Blue 
Book that in the year 1891 the report shows that the death-rate of the 
army has fallen to 9*13 per 1000. What is the cause of that ? It is, 
I think, largely caused by the better space and the better sanitary 
conditions and environments that the soldier is living in, and these 
results have been largely owing to the sanitary advice of the medical 
service acting in preventive capacity as the preventers and not merely 
the curers of disease. It is in the discharge of this duty that the 
greatest moral courage and independence of character is needed. 
There is nothing more easy and charming than to go to a great hos¬ 
pital and to work there ; no one interferes with you and you may make 
yourself a great name. I may serve in a far away garrison in India 
and may make a great name by treating the 50 or 60 cases of typhoid 
that occur in the year, and may be much thought of and honoured. 
There is a better way to make a great name. I say that if my 
child is ill and there is a doctor close by who can cure him of diphtheria 
he is a good man; but the doctor who prevents the attack occurring 
is a better man. That military doctor who, knowing the soldier’s 
sanitary wants, his water supply, his clothing, and his food, and his 
surrounding, and who seeks the reasons why a man is getting sick 
with typhoid is a more useful man to the nation and the army, and a 
better man than the other, however good he may be. You want in the 
army as a Medical Officer the man who will give you in the battle 10 
more men to your battery or 100 more men to your regiment. Is that 
the case or is it not ? It is most certainly. I say that the sanitary 
side of life is of great importance. You may read in the military 
papers letters which say that the military doctors should be what they 
call a doctor; they think and talk as if in England there were not 
more than 1000 doctors who do no curative doctoring whatever in 
the way of prescribing for the sick. But the 1000 doctors in the 
public health service of England are most masterful men, and have far 
greater authority as regards the inspection of food supply and the 
sanitary condition of the people than we have in the army. These 
physicians are just as much doctors as the others, but they are dealing 
with a different side of the question of life and its ailments, viz., with 
the question of prevention of disease; and for you in the army it is of 
great importance that you should not get in the military service weak- 
kneed and craven men afraid to speak on sanitary matters, but men of 
rank and standing who would be able and willing to speak out and 
point out the path to sanitary improvements. 
The army death-rate has thus fallen largely by going into sanitary 
matters, and that you have benefited by it, by having men in your 
