THE SANITARY CARE OP THE SOLDIER. 
447 
with a Frenchman or an Indian. He is, therefore, unable to make the 
best of his rations ; he believes in nothing but flesh and potatoes ; he 
will waste half his potatoes in the peeling ; he will throw away his 
bread; he likes to have all his meals as early as possible, and to clear 
away the last meal as soon as possible, so as to be able to go out of 
barracks. The soup meal in the evening is a difficulty ; the cook is 
apt to resent the innovation and purposely to make the soup so bad 
that the men will not take it; then it will be reported that the men do 
not care for it, and the cook-house can be closed as formerly before 5 
o'clock. 
All this is to a certain extent a matter of good or bad management, 
for the soldier should not be left to complain; he should feel that the 
Commanding Officer's eye is never closed, and his scent for abuses 
keen. There is no doubt some blame attaching in many cases to 
officers, in that they are not zealous in scenting out petty fraud or 
other practices to the prejudice of the soldier. At the same time 
officers may reply that abuses are difficult to uproot, and soldiers 
put up with abuses which are sometimes indirectly advantageous to 
them, as exemplified in the Indian canteen system, by which too often 
those in charge make large illicit profits and the men are enabled to 
obtain liquor at the backdoor. I must refer back to one statement 
before concluding my vindication of the home ration. Lieut.-Col. Evatt 
says, “ The moment a sergeant is broken and put back to the ranks, 
he is pulled down at once by the want of food." Is it not much more 
probable that being generally broken for intemperance (which cannot 
be said, in his case, to have been caused by want of food) he further 
drowns his shame in liquor, and his debilitated stomach turns against 
food ? Tippling habits are far too common among sergeants, and in 
India especially, where the canteen system is too often their ruin 
morally and physically, a sergeant laid up by an accident is generally 
a bad patient to deal with. 
I have as yet only touched on one single part of Lieut.-Col. Evatt's 
lecture; before leaving it I would draw attention to expressions in which 
accuracy appears to me sacrificed to sensation. “ Look at those young 
recruits going out to India to fight typhoid ; they want to be well fed 
most awfully." How, we know that the recruits are not going out to 
India to fight typhoid, even figuratively; well fed or ill fed they could 
not do it. But the Medical Officers can fight typhoid, for, like cholera, 
it is a disease generally due to sanitary defects within the jurisdiction 
of their Department. 
Unfortunately, statements of this kind abound in the lecture. Thus 
(p. 208) :■—“ 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 guards¬ 
men at the rate of 20 per 1000 per annum." But as we are also 
told (p. 211) that the death-rate of the Guards was a 20 per 1000 
per annum, that bad standard of old years, until in 1890 it has fallen 
to 9*88 per 1000," it is evident that the poisonous atmosphere did not 
kill off 20 per 1000—since that was the total death-rate from all causes , 
as it is now 9*88 from all causes. And there is no mention of the fact 
