They were stationed at Walcheren, which was the
principal seat of the sickness and suffering of their predecessors,
sixty or seventy years before. Fever and dysentery attacked this second
army as they had the first, and with a similar virulence and
destructiveness. In two months after landing,
Sept. 13, 7,626 were on the sick-list.
" 19, 8,123 " "
" 21, 8,684 " "
" 23, 9,046 " "
In ninety-seven days 12,867 were sent home sick; and on the 22d of
October there were only 4,000 effective men left fit for duty out of
this army of about 40,000 healthy men, who had left England within less
than four months. On the 1st of February of the next year, there were
11,513 on the sick-list, and 15,570 had been lost or disabled. Between
January 1st and June of the same year, (1810,) 36,500 were admitted to
the hospitals, and 8,000, or more than 20 per cent., died, which is
equal to an annual rate of 48 per cent, mortality.
The British army in Spain and Portugal suffered greatly through the
Peninsular War, from 1808 to 1814. During the whole of that period,
there was a constant average of 209 per 1,000 on the sick-list, and the
proportion was sometimes swelled to 330 per 1,000. Through the forty-one
months ending May 25th, 1814, with an average of 61,511 men, there was
an average of 13,815 in the hospitals, which is 22.
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