446 
THE SANITARY CARE OF' THE SOLDIER. 
I think I have now given proof that the ration is sufficient with 
ordinary good management. It is not so complete as the Indian 
ration, but we must remember that Miss Nightingale (whom Lieut.-Col. 
Evatt quotes as an authority on these subjects) has denounced the 
Indian ration because of the excessive amount of meat which, in her 
opinion, it contains. The home system of a fixed and a variable part 
of the ration, the latter purchased at the canteen by company arrange¬ 
ments, has the advantage of adaptability to circumstances. Scotsmen 
can have porridge. Irishmen can have extra potatoes, old soldiers can 
have curry, and the lads jam-rolls. Besides, whatever special food 
happens to be cheap locally can be bought at great advantage. 
It is scarcely necessary to disprove the assertion that the soldier's 
“drinking and smoking are attempts to satisfy his demands for food." If 
it were so, how is it that “this great fighting machine, the German soldier 
[who] fights because into his body you put plenty of food," is so fond 
of tobacco—and of beer ? And do we not, unfortunately, see only too 
many cases of excessive smoking and drinking among Englishmen and 
Americans who want for nothing in the way of food ? Lieut.-Col. 
Evatt says “ a man drinks because he wants food." This is an example 
of the unfortunate statements which abound in the lecture, and deprive 
it of all authority. We know that the inability to resist the temptation 
of drink is confined to no class, and is most prevalent, irrespective 
of wages, where education, in the true sense of the word—bringing-up 
—has been most defective. But if the home ration is insufficient, 
neither will the complete Indian ration satisfy Lieut.-Col. Evatt. 
He says “ you cannot conceive how bad the Indian rations are." I 
passed many years in India, and my observations were entirely opposed 
to this view ; the ration is complete, and a trustworthy soldier is ap¬ 
pointed at every station for the sole duty of seeing that the cattle for 
his comrades' rations are healthy and well-fed. It is true that his 
term of office is not usually of very long continuance, so fat does he 
get on it, and a change in the interest of his health is desirable. But, 
at all events, it cannot be denied that the meat, like the rest of the 
rations, is well looked after, and the cooking is well-known to be 
excellent. 
Lieut.-Col. Evatt refers to the rations of foreign armies. Closer 
inquiry would show that everywhere the ration is fairly in accordance 
with the working-class dietary of the country, that everywhere there are 
complaints, and nowhere are the materials of the ration better than in 
our Army, though the management of the food may be better on the 
Continent, where the people have more taste for cooking than in this 
country. Taking as an example the Italian Army (one scarcely likely 
to be as well fed as ours), I see it asserted by a Medical Officer of that 
Army, in an essay published in Paris, “ Sur Valimentation du soldat ," 
that the ration is amply sufficient, that the men keep in excellent 
condition on it during manoeuvres, but that sickness appears when the 
troops return to villages and towns, where the hospitality of the in¬ 
habitants supplements the ration liberally. 
The real difficulty is that the English soldier is a bad cook, and no 
training can give him that sense of cookery which is almost an instinct 
