Wherever the vital forces are
depressed, there these diseases of low vitality happen most frequently
and are most fatal.
Volumes of other facts and statements might be quoted to show that
military service is exhaustive of vital force more than the pursuits of
civil life. It is so even in time of peace, and it is remarkably so in
time of war. Comparing the English statements of the mortality in the
army with the calculations of the expectation of life in the general
community, the difference is at once manifest.
Of 10,000 men at the age of twenty, there will die before they complete
their fortieth year,--
British army in time of peace, 3,058
England and Wales, English Life-Table, 1,853
According to tables of Amicable and
Equitable Life-Insurance Companies, 1,972
New England and New York, according
to the tables of the New-England
Mutual Life-Insurance Company, 1,721
DANGERS IN LAND-BATTLES.
This large amount of disease and mortality in the army arises not from
the battle-field, but belongs to the camp, the tent, the barrack, the
cantonment; and it is as certain, though not so great, in time of peace,
when no harm is inflicted by the instruments of destruction, as in time
of war. The battle, which is the world's terror, is comparatively
harmless.
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