Although sickness has been more
prevalent, and death in consequence more frequent, in camps and military
stations than in the dwellings of peace, this excess is not unavoidable,
but may be mostly, if not entirely, prevented. Men are not more sick
because they are soldiers and live apart from their homes, but because
they are exposed to conditions or indulge in habits that would produce
the same results in civil as in military life. Wherever civilians have
fallen into these conditions and habits, they have suffered in the same
way; and wherever the army has been redeemed from these, sickness and
mortality have diminished, and the health and efficiency of the men have
improved.
Great Britain has made and is still making great and successful efforts
to reform the sanitary condition of her army. The improvement in the
health of the troops in the Crimea in 1856 and 1857 has already been
described. The reduction of the annual rate of mortality caused by
disease, from 1,142 to 13 in a thousand, in thirteen months, opened the
eyes of the Government to the real state of matters in the army, and to
their own connection with it. They saw that the excess of sickness and
death among the troops had its origin in circumstances and conditions
which they could control, and then they began to feel the responsibility
resting upon them for the health and life of their soldiers.
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