THE SANITARY CARE OF THE SOLDIER. 
219 
barrack-room. On tbe troop-ship and in India a sleeping suit would 
save much trouble. The moment I go back to India I will propose 
that every man should get a regulation sleeping suit, I am sure it 
would improve the men's health, certainly it would improve their clean¬ 
liness, and it would improve the air of the barrack-room. The whole 
argument about dress cau be summed up in this way : believe me you 
cannot make any man work in one dress, whether officer or man ; that is 
to say, for example, that a man cannot go out shooting in the Highlands 
in a long-tailed evening coat. We want a working dress for the army ; 
we want something for the internal barrack life of the soldier, and we 
want a sleeping suit for him to wear at night in the barrack-room. I 
notice that in Parkes' Hygiene it says that the German Army are to be 
entirely clothed in Jaeger suits under their clothes in war—that is to 
say, that they find that it pays. Of course, the existence of Germany 
depends upon its soldiers, and she finds that it pays. Bronchitis and 
pneumonia in the army running into phthisis causes a great loss of 
service to the army, and a soldier going on guard not properly dressed 
gets knocked up, and a thing that often attacks him is pleurisy. I 
remember I was in a very exposed station in India where pleurisy was 
a very common thing’, and I remember a special case of this : I was 
going round the hospital with a General Officer, whom everybody in 
this room would know if I mentioned his name, and I said to him, 
“This is a case of pleurisy,’' and he said to me, “ What is pleurisy ?" 
I think it was a pity that he should have had to ask such a ques¬ 
tion. If a soldier were to leave his rifle out in the rain outside 
the guard-room and it were to get rusty in the lock you would punish 
him; but behind the rifle is a much more intricate and charming 
rifle, and that is the man who carries it. We would be better friends 
if you knew more about disease, and we would be more efficient 
if we knew something more about soldiering. I think it is essential 
that the officer who commands the soldier should know what disease is 
likely to attack him. I venture to say that there is not a good horse- 
master in this room who would not be ashamed if he did not know the 
various ailments that might attack his horse. When I go round the 
stables and see the charming care that is taken of the horses—why, 
they are gentlemen, they are well-groomed, well-shod, well-fed, and 
well-housed. But your men also have got to be looked after. When 
I look at the hoofs of the horses they are in beautiful condition. When 
I go to the hospital ward and turn down the clothes of the men's beds 
their nails at times frighten me, they stand out like tigers claws, they 
seem never to cut them. They do not know how to use those things 
that make for sanitation, and you have got to educate them. Uncut 
toe-nails and filthy feet means foot-sore feet and that means inefficiency 
in war. 
As regards the soldier's food question the history of its evolution is 
extremely instructive. Up to 1854 the Government made no contracts 
for bread or meat; it was done in the regiments by the Commanding 
Officer, who was sole master. He was sole master of the clothing, 
and the men got so snipped that the word “ off reckoning " survives ; 
the “ off reckoning " was the cuttings off the soldier's clothes. In the 
