"[45]
In addition to this, it must be remembered, that, although all recruits
are apparently perfect in form and free from disease when they enter the
army, yet there may be differences in constitutional force, which cannot
be detected by the most careful examiners. Some have more and some have
less power of endurance. But the military burden and the work of war are
arranged and determined for the strongest, and, of course, break down
the weak, who retire in disability or sink in death.
GENERAL VITAL DEPRESSION
Two causes of depression operate, to a considerable degree in peace and
to a very great degree in war, on the soldier, and reduce and sicken him
more than the civilian. His vital force is not so well sustained by
never-failing supplies of nutritious and digestible food and regular
nightly sleep, and his powers are more exhausted in hardships and
exposures, in excessive labors and want of due rest and protection
against cold and heat, storms and rains. Consequently the army suffers
mostly from diseases of depression,--those of the typhoid, adynamic, and
scorbutic types. McGrigor says, that, in the British army in the
Peninsula, of 176,007 cases treated and recorded by the surgeons, 68,894
were fevers, 23,203 diseases of the bowels, 12,167 ulcers, and 4,027
diseases of the lungs.
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