soldier must, like other people, have his life, health, and comfort provided for, before he can be raised in the scale of intelligence, morals, and manners.
The advantages of the soldier’s calling would seem to be great. He is exempt from the anxieties which belong to uncertainty of employment and earnings; his wants are provided for with absolute certainty, in regard to food, clothing, and habitation. His money earnings, if small, are constant; he has not to go through an apprenticeship to his business, but receives pay from the hour when he begins to learn his work. Except in rare seasons of warfare, he is never overtasked; and, in those seasons, the novelty of travel, the complacency belonging to personal importance, the opportunity of distinction, and all the strong emotions which belong to campaigning, are much more than a compensation for toil; so that all real soldiers rejoice in the summons to go out to the scene of war. In case of wounds there is a pension; and there is now a long perspective of honours and rewards for military merit, open to the humblest member of the army. All these advantages failed, as we have seen, to attract the young men of the middle as well as the lower classes, while the discomfort of the soldier’s life lowered the soldier’s quality. Now they may have their fair effect, because the health and welfare of the profession are cared for as they never were before. Among mechanics, the rate of death has been a little more than 13 per thousand; but as soon as the mechanics turned soldiers, they died at the rate of from 17 to 20 per thousand, according to the places and circumstances in which they were appointed to live. Once more the turn has been taken; and, generally speaking, it is the soldier’s own fault if his chance for life and health is lower than that of his brothers on the farm or in the workshop.
We are not yet in possession of the Barrack Report, which will tell us what has been actually done to improve the soldier’s dwelling, and what more is recommended. Meantime, we all understand that the overcrowding of sleeping-rooms, and the consequent heat and bad air, are largely owing to the soldiers themselves. At least, it is plain that the men themselves lower the better sort of rooms to the level of the worse by stopping up all air-holes. The air becomes poisoned very soon, by the breath of the inmates; and this, by itself, may account for a considerable number of the yearly deaths in the army. There is henceforth to be such an inspection of every apartment in every barrack as shall prevent such poisoning through the lungs. It will not be in the power of any inmate to stop out the air; no more than the proper number will be put into any one room: there will be an end of the barbarous old practices by which bad smells are caused in barrack rooms; and a regular care of the drainage is already a matter of course. The Duke of Wellington was once appealed to by parties in the Tower who could not agree whether men or blankets should be put into a barrack which was excessively damp. The official who had charge of the blankets alleged that they must have the dry barrack because they would be ruined in the damp one; and the regimental officer said the same about his men, whom he considered the more valuable article of the two. The Duke agreed with him. In regard to damp barracks everywhere the question is now virtually settled, though there is much to do yet before our soldiers can be lodged as well as they ought to be, even at home. In India, Sir Charles Napier began an improvement in military building so remarkable that the soldiers persist in calling the new edifices Napier barracks. The reform is secure there; but there are several of our colonies still unfavourably distinguished for the mortality in the regiments stationed there. In Parliament and out of it such places must be watched till all our soldiers are placed high and dry, in well-ventilated barracks.
A provision is matured for our troops being better lodged in camp, and on the march, than any other army perhaps ever was.
Till recently, the choice of lodgings, or of the spot for encampment, was the business of the quarter-master, who had no concern with the health of the troops, but only with the supply of their main wants. He looked for wood and water, and for space enough; and if he found these, with ground which would bear the weight of the camp, he was satisfied. If the medical men saw reason to disapprove the choice, they could do nothing. They were charged only with the sick and wounded. They were not asked for an opinion; and they had no right to urge their views on the officer in command. If any one ventured to do so, he was likely to be told that when his advice on military matters was desired, it would be asked. All this is mended now.
It is recognised at present that an education which prepares doctors to deal with sickness and wounds is altogether different from one which teaches the conditions of health, and how to secure them. For the first time, the care of the health (as well as of the sickness) of the army is committed to a body of officers, properly educated for the purpose. The vague and comprehensive office of the army-doctor is now distributed among three functionaries. One order of inspectors and doctors takes charge of the sick and wounded, and the hospitals which contain them. Another takes charge of the health of the force, and is responsible for the good situation of the camp, unless the commanding officer sees reason to overrule the advice he is always to receive. The drainage, cleanliness, dryness, and wholesomeness of the ground, and the airiness and wholesomeness of quarters in towns, are in the charge of these sanitary officers. The third set take care of the statistics of the medical department of the army. They note all the facts of soil, climate, and local diseases: they keep the medical case books, and register the sicknesses under heads carefully arranged, and the recoveries and deaths. In a few years we shall thus know what the liabilities of soldiers are in various climates and situations, and what are the commonest diseases among a great body of men collected at home or abroad; and we shall no longer make our preparations at random, but, in each case, with a clear and intelligent aim. The army doctors are henceforth to go through the ordinary medical and surgical education first, and then to have an additional training to fit them to manage the diseases which most afflict armies, and