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THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE BRITISH ARMY.
THE MEDICAL EVIDENCE IN THE CASE OF MRS. ARMSTRONG. cause a certificate of the kind in question is not an oath as to WE presume that no man of natural common sense or acthe nature of the disease causing death, but an opinion, which quired experience in the world, attaches the slightest impormay be expressed with as much or as little confidence as the tance to the praise or censure uttered by the gentlemen of the opportunities for arriving at it will justify. In this instance robe when in the exercise of their professional functions. Dr. M’DONALD appears to have "tried conclusions" with the It would, therefore, be altogether superfluous to notice the law, confessedly hard, and to have found it too strong for CHAMBERS upon Dr. strictures passed by Mr. him. WINSLOW’S evidence in the case of the QUEEN v. ARMSTRONG, There is a point in the summing up of the Sheriff in the case if the public had that evidence fairly placed before them, as of DODDS which strikes us as particularly meriting observation, well as the speech of the learned counsel. But The Tinaes has inasmuch as it amounts to a deliberate imputation upon Dr. the published speech in extenso; and the evidence of Dr. M’DONALD’S veracity, and ignores the testimony of all the wit- WINSLOW, we may say, not at all; and, therefore, the oneThe plea of Dr. M’DONALD in this case was, that he sided view of the facts nesses. presented might prejudice Dr. WrnsLOw’ did not receive notice of the death. His statement to the Court in the eyes of the unthinking. For example, this eminent was, that he only heard of the death of DODDS accidentally psychologist is represented as having affirmed that Mrs. ARMand a long time after. The witnesses, both for the prosecu- STRONG was insane because she desired to live apart from her tion and defence, all stated that no intimation of the death of husband. The absurdity of this representation, it may be DoDDS was, as far as they knew, sent to Dr. M’DONALD; said, refutes itself; but when we find a counsel professing to and even the registrar, who exceeded his functions in writing lay the true facts of a case before the jury, dwelling with em. a threatening letter to the doctor, requiring a certificate, this statement as phasis upon constituting the truth, it is and in default intimating an action at law, did not apprise the worth a little to unfairness of such attacks the space expose defendant of the death of DODDS till seven months after it took upon professional character. Had these attacks been calcuplace. In the face of this evidence, the Sheriff remarks : " As lated to have any weight with the jury, who had heard the " to the plea that notice of the death had not been received by evidence, Lord CAMPBELL would probably have called the pri. "the defender, that was of no consequence; for, even supveri to But the public, as we have order. vileged suppressor "posing the statement to be correct, the law did not require said, have not had the opportunity of hearing, or even reading’ " notice to be served on him." Even supposing the testimony the evidence: they only know the facts as distorted by counsel. of every one who spoke to the case, both on the complainer’s We, therefore, simply state, that other grounds weighed with and defender’s side, to corroborate Dr. MIDO-NALD’S plea, it Dr. WINSLOW in forming his opinion of Mrs. ARMSTRONG’S was not to be held that he did rot receive notice ! Again, it state of mind; and that those other grounds were stated in his appears that the Act gives the Sheriff a discretionary power certificate and evidence. That those grounds were convincing as to mitigating or not inflicting the penalty, in case the cereven to Mr. CHAMBERS, there is no doubt, for he did not ventificate has not been wilfully withheld, but has been omitted ture to call medical witnesses in refutation. He relied, as his’ by unavoidable accident, or circumstances over which the de- fraternity generally does in desperate cases, upon a " speech." fender has no control, or when he has used every reasonable The jury received his speech for "quantum valebat," and reendeavour to comply with the law. Now, in spite of the con- turned a verdict in accordance with the evidence of Dr. current testimony of all parties that Dr. M’DoNALD was long WINSLOW. ignorant of the death, and in spite of the fact that the residence ofDODDS was a great distance from his own, and quite out of THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE his usual rounds, the Sheriff sapiently ruled that Dr. M’DONALD BRITISH ARMY. was entitled to no consideration whatever, and must be fined in the full penalty with costs. THE high position which medicine is destined to occupy in The law is an extremely unjust one. It extracts from the the national councils has never been more forcibly asserted profession in Scotland, without payment, a large amount of than in the Report just issued upon the Sanitary Condition nf most valuable information which can only be given by it. This, the British Army. It had long been known that some secret exercised a fatal influence over the health of our soldiers. however, would be bearable; but when the law goes on to power It had been known that an excessive and unexplained mortality throw the onus of procuring information of the death upon the prevailed on the 5th of May, 1857, a commission was appointed medical attendant, and even makes it a matter of prudence "to inquire into the sanitary condition of the British army, and with every medical man to ascertain, from time to time, the state of the army hospitals, the rank, pay, emoluments, whether every patient he may have seen from a certain period and efficiency of the Army Medical Department; and to report (left to the discretion of Sheriffs to determine) be alive or not, what measures they might think advisable for the prevention of sickness and the treatment of disease in her Majesty’s forces." and when the law comes to be interpreted by such men as The labours of this commission have issued in the establishSheriffSTRATHERN, the case is past bearing. ment of the most incredible facts. They have given a higher We strongly advise our northern brethren to memorialize state value to the cultivation of sanitary science than any the Lord Advocate, and, if nothing comes of it soon, to 8t)-ik-e. other conclusions less important or of slighter dimensions could Strikes are dangerous and silly in matters of labour, which have done. The statements made are of so surprising and of must always have its price according to the fluctuations of so grave a character that it is well to note that the commissioners numbered amongst them men of the most varied extrade, but when an arbitrary and oppressive law is to be perience, and of calm intelligence, occupying high professional amended, the determination of all concerned not to comply and official positions, and treading all the secret avenues of in* with its provisions may become a moral duty.
long
MONTAGUE
’
___________
formation.
* The members of the Commission
were
the
Right Hon. Sidney Herbert
Mr. Augustus Stafford, Sir H. K. Storks, K.C.B., Dr. Andrew Smith, Directof
196
Their labours endured during several months. They ana- whose duty is very parallel to that of the home army, except lyzed all the Reports which have been presented upon this sub- that their night-work is much more severe, the following ject during the last thirty years : they examined fifty witnesses, figures represent the results of the comparison :—’’The mormedical, military, administrative, and engineering. The last tality of the household cavalry equal to 11/3; dragoons, 14/10; pame upon the list of those examined is that of Florence Night- infantry of the line, 2 ; foot guards, 2ï2lJ times as great as that ingale, whose evidence, extending over thirty pages, is marked of the police, whose mortality is 8’9222 per 1000." It is a by the most remarkable intelligence and considerable informa- curious fact, which will not fail to arrest the eye as it wanders tion. over these figures, that the foot guards, who do no Indian or One great result issues from these investigations, which, as colonial duty, are in a more deplorable state than any other it is singular in its terrible significanee, so it deserves to be part of the army. The soldier’s is a picked life compared with recorded apart from all accessory details. So deadly is the mili- the civilian’s, and he dies off twice as fast; the guardsman repretary service to those who engage in it, that the recruit sacrifices sents a picked life compared with the soldier of the line, and again he dies twice as fast as the linesman. The laws of hygiene are one half of his chances of average longevity by entering her Majesty’s army. Let all his small hopes be gratified; let him revolutionized, and vital statistics worked backwards by the enter the most distinguished and least laborious corps of her military authorities. The stronger the man, the more quickly Majesty’s Foot-guards; and though remaining always at home, he is killed; the better his chance of life, the shorter its dura.free from Indian or from colonial duty, exempt from the dan- tion ; the more costly the soldier, the more rapidly he is degerous chances of war, and from the more dangerous vicissi- stroyed. We pass on to the discussion of the diseases which mow tudes of climate and locality, yet he has thrown to the winds more down the ranks of our army. And here we meet with the can be one half of his chances of longevity. Nothing clearly demonstrated than the truth of this most grave an- most instructive facts. Seven-ninths of the mortality of the nouncement. The figures upon which the calculation is based British army are due to two classes of disease alone-namely, are stated with the coldest exactness; they are drawn from zymotic diseases, (such as fevers, diarrhoea, and cholera,) and the most undeniable authorities. The Registrar-General’s pulmonary affections; and although zymotic diseases do their Report shows that the average rate of mortality amongst civi- deadly work with more than twice the activity which they lians of the army age is 9’2 per 1000; in the country alone, display amongst civilians, yet their influence upon the soldiers 7’2. Even in Manchester, which is one of the unhealthiest is not nearly so deadly as are the destructive inroads of pultowns, it does not rise above 12 2 ; while in the army at home monary disease. In civil life, the deaths from the latter disthe average mortality is at the rate of 17-5 per 1000 men. orders amount to 6’3 per 1000 ; in the cavalry to 7’3; amongst Thus it is proved that our soldiers are killed off nearly twice the infantry of the line to 10’2; and amongst the guards to 13’8. It is very valuable and instructive to know that these as fast as the sickly operatives ’of the unhealthiest of towns. Now, put these figures in another shape, in which their mean- two classes of disease are the main sources of death in the ing may show forth yet more clearly. Instead of talking of ranks, because it at once becomes obvious that the main causes the rate per 1000, let us calculate the total numbers of the in- of this excess of mortality must be such as depend upon the glorious slain. In the fifteen years previous to 1853, the neglect of very simple and primary laws of hygiene. The main causes of disease traced by the Commissioners are deaths amongst a number of the British people equal to that of divided the army, amounted to 16,211. In the same period, out of a by them under four heads: night duty; want of exerlike number of men of the same age engaged in her Majesty’s cise and suitable employment; intemperate and debauched service, 58,139 have been swept away. Thus 41,928 men have habits; crowding and inefficient ventilation, and nuisances died in fifteen years, who should still be living. It is a whole from sewerage of barracks. The greatest influence has hitherto army whom we have sacrificed. In peace, at home, under the been ascribed to the exposure attendant upon night duty; and very eye of the Government and of the people of England, the obvious risks of disease from exposure to inclement weather at unnatural hours were thought to explain sufficiently the 42,000 picked lives have been unnaturally cut short. It must not be thought that this statement is exaggerated ; excessive mortality which has so long been known to prevail it is below the mark. The military medical system is so in the army. But the conclusion at which the Commissioners arranged that the apparent death-rates of the army are reduced have arrived is of a very opposite nature. They have found in considerably beyond their real proportions, by the preliminary the duties of the police force a close parallel to the night duties rejection of bad lives, and by the subsequent discharge of all of the soldiers, except indeed, that the former are much more soldiers in whom symptoms of incapability and disease have severe. Yet the mortality of the army is, as we have seen, appeared within the first three years of service. In order to more than twice as great as that of the police. Of the influinstitute a fair comparison, account should be taken-1st, of ence of want of fit exercise and agreeable employments the those who do not offer themselves by reason of conscious phy- Report speaks, of course, with some doubt. The soldier is sical inability; 2ndly, of those who offer themselves, and are devoured by ennui; the slave of routine, he performs merejected as unfit; 3rdly, of those who die, as invalids and chanically a series of duties in which the mind takes no share, pensioners, and whose deaths should be transferred from the and which are the more irksome because they are enforced. In civil list; 4thly, of idiots, deformed persons, lunatics, and his hours of leisure he has neither reading-room nor gymnastic other dregs of the population, unfit for this or for any other school for his recreation, and he passes his leisure in listlessly occupation. Thus the death-rates of the army are actually lounging about the barrack or the tap-room. This is a very higher than they are stated to be in this Report, and this ter- bad state of things, and no doubt a want of fit occupations rible sacrifice of forty-two thousand lives does not include all lowers at once the morale and the physique, and renders the the victims slain. From the establishment of this general fact, men more obnoxious to disease. Yet it cannot be included the Commissioners proceed to the comparison of the rates of amongst the more active agents of death. We must look still mortality amongst soldiers with those of men engaged in various deeper for the cause of mortality. We shall not find it under other occupations ; and the only occupations with which it was the third head. Intemperance prevails unquestionably in the found possible to institute a comparison were those of the most army, but to no greater extent than amongst civilians. It notably unhealthy character, as of weavers, night printers, works positive harm amongst the ranks of the one as of the miners, and policemen. Even here the advantage is most other; but its victims are not disproportionately numerous markedly with the civilians. Thus in the case of the police, amongst our soldiers, and it cannot most certainly be ranked amongst thecauses of the excess ’of military deaths. Thus the General of the Army, Dr. V. Alexander, C.H., Sir Thomas Phillips, J. R. Martin, Esq., F.R.S., Sir J. Clarke, M.D., Dr. T. Sutherland. soldier is freed from blame in the matter. It is not
individual
197
by reason of his own
vices
follies that death
would have scarcely cost a tithe of the sum which is in the case of the soldier, and indirectly in the case The great source of pulmonary disease amongst our soldiers of the civilian-lost to the State through her being at large. is declared by the Commissioners to reside in the poisoned air The result of the physical evil on the latter class of persons of the dormitories of the barracks. It will hardly be believed even more forcibly shows the necessity for State interference. that the number of cubic feet of air allowed for each soldier is It is well known that personal cleanliness, and all those social nominally much less than the allowance of the Scotch pauper, proprieties which we include under the term of hygiene, greatly and practically often does not equal it by one half. Immured tend to diminish the virulence of venereal disease. These salu. thus in foul and ill-ventilated rooms, which serve alike for tary provisions are year by year becoming more attended to. dormitories at night and sitting-rooms during the day-the! It follows, therefore, that the registered deaths from syphilis beds, perhaps, less than a foot apart-the air impregnated withL (each of which necessarily supposes extreme virulence) should miasmatic gases, products of respiration, exhalations of sewage, proportinally diminish, even if we exclude the influence of im. and effluvia from wooden tubs filled with ammoniacal de- proved methods of treatment. These are the hard figures which the Registrar-General’ posit-the soldier goes through a dull routine of depressing; L Renorts furnish on the noint :is condemned to a diet of eternal boiled and labour; beef; penal then covered with a great cape, remarkable for its spongy and absorbent properties. Finally, after being well sweated at the guard-room fire, he is turned out into the cold, damp night air, and perhaps into the rain, to mount guard. This is the favourite recipe of the Horse Guards, for breeding consumption. The fatal success with which its application has been attended Making every allowance for the increasing population, and is worthy of the ingenious stupidicy with which it is devised. leaving a broad margin for error, we have here a progressive It is thus that thirty thousand men have been slain during the increase in the number of deaths, whilst all experience teaches last fifteen years. These statements appeared at first hardly that the virulence of the disease is greatly diminished. What, credible even to the Commissioners ; but as they proceeded upon then, must be the increase in the number of cases which do not their inquiry, investigation begot belief, which in the end gave cause death, but each of which incapacitates the sufferer from his or her occupation ? way to the fullest conviction. That great class of purists who never knew temptation, who or
hastens
so soon
cure
to claim him.
- directly
.
’
.
Medical Annotations. "
PROSTITUTION :
Ne
quid nimis."
ITS MEDICAL ASPECTS.
NECESSITY, under whatever pretence it be disguised, is the great determining cause of legislation. We have, therefore, endeavoured to show, by figures which admit of no dispute and facts which none have ventured to gainsay, that unchecked prostitution, and vice which derides such feeble efforts as have hitherto been made for its control, are inflicting increasing evils, the full extent of which has hitherto been unrecognised. And if all the direct physical and moral results already enumerated are not sufficient to demonstrate the necessity for legislative interference, there yet remain other evils which more immediately affect the State; and that through a very susceptible
part-the pocket.
" Compound for sins they are inclined to By damning those they have no mind to," and who rehearse their lead-coffin principles of exclusiveness whilst yet alive, may possibly object that these figures only prove a just retribution. This proposition assumes that no foregone blame attaches to anyone but the evil-doer, and necessarily implies that its supporter knows all about itis one who could " expose himself to feel what wretches feel," without going astray, and who could have stayed and flung his stone when the conscious crowd of accusers slunk away from the presence of the One who knew their hearts. But if the correctness of the principle involved in this self-righteous argument against interference were established, there are some further statistics which altogether set aside its practical application. For it is not the direct doers of evil who chiefly suffer, Of 947 or to whom principally the wages of sin are death. deaths from syphilis in England during 1855, 579 occurred in children under one year; and of the 179 who died from the same cause in London, 134 were also infants. And these in no set aside those above be it remembered, way figures, quoted. They prove only the more cogently the necessity for State interference, as each death represents the infection of two individuals at least, the guilty parent who recovers, and the innocent child who dies. This, then, is the climax of the evil. Not alone does the state suffer-not alone does the evildoer reap in full measure the crops which spring from the " sinful lusts of the flesh," but-sooner than relax the cordon which an unchristian prudery has drawn around the subjectthe lives of innocent children are yearly sacrificed by hundreds :
Our soldiers and sailors are trained and supported solely that by their physical strength they may do the State some service. Therefore, impairment of a man’s health constitutes him, pro tanto, a bad bargain to the country, and represents the loss of so much money. Now, when we find that from 1830 to 1847 the number of soldiers annually diseased varied from 181 to 206 per 1000 men, or, in other words, that about one-fifth of the whole effective force in this country, are yearly in hospital with venereal disease for a period of twenty-two days (as calculated by Dr. Gordon), we may easily judge what is the loss sustained in this branch of the service alone. " Quos dulcis vitæ exsortes et ab ubere raptos Abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo." If the course of the diseased "femme publique,"as described in our last number, be borne in mind, it is scarcely necessary If we keep steadily in view the extreme improbability of thete to point out how glaring an instance of wasteful inconsistency being any venereal disease which has not at some time or other the above figures represent. The disease of the prostitute (and passed through the frame of a prostitute, we cannot fail to the lowest and most infected class necessarily furnishes the recognise the advisability of facilitating the cure of disease soldier’s companion) is uncared for. If, in the pursuit of amongst these women, and preventing by every possible means her miserable avocation, she infect only three soldiers, they that broadcast spreading of the evil already described. And are forthwith submitted to skilful treatment at the national such recognition has, indeed, been already officially acknowcharge, and cause a direct loss of between three and four ledged to be necessary. For the great prevalence of syphilis pounds to the State,-since the deduction from the pay in the navy has led to the appropriation of a certain number only represents the cost of their treatment. Had proper hos- of beds in the Government Hospital at Portsmouth, as Dital room been nrovided for the woman, her treatment and a sanitary provision to prevent or arrest the disease amongst
198
long
MONTAGUE
’
___________
formation.
* The members of the Commission
were
the
Right Hon. Sidney Herbert
Mr. Augustus Stafford, Sir H. K. Storks, K.C.B., Dr. Andrew Smith, Directof
196
Their labours endured during several months. They ana- whose duty is very parallel to that of the home army, except lyzed all the Reports which have been presented upon this sub- that their night-work is much more severe, the following ject during the last thirty years : they examined fifty witnesses, figures represent the results of the comparison :—’’The mormedical, military, administrative, and engineering. The last tality of the household cavalry equal to 11/3; dragoons, 14/10; pame upon the list of those examined is that of Florence Night- infantry of the line, 2 ; foot guards, 2ï2lJ times as great as that ingale, whose evidence, extending over thirty pages, is marked of the police, whose mortality is 8’9222 per 1000." It is a by the most remarkable intelligence and considerable informa- curious fact, which will not fail to arrest the eye as it wanders tion. over these figures, that the foot guards, who do no Indian or One great result issues from these investigations, which, as colonial duty, are in a more deplorable state than any other it is singular in its terrible significanee, so it deserves to be part of the army. The soldier’s is a picked life compared with recorded apart from all accessory details. So deadly is the mili- the civilian’s, and he dies off twice as fast; the guardsman repretary service to those who engage in it, that the recruit sacrifices sents a picked life compared with the soldier of the line, and again he dies twice as fast as the linesman. The laws of hygiene are one half of his chances of average longevity by entering her Majesty’s army. Let all his small hopes be gratified; let him revolutionized, and vital statistics worked backwards by the enter the most distinguished and least laborious corps of her military authorities. The stronger the man, the more quickly Majesty’s Foot-guards; and though remaining always at home, he is killed; the better his chance of life, the shorter its dura.free from Indian or from colonial duty, exempt from the dan- tion ; the more costly the soldier, the more rapidly he is degerous chances of war, and from the more dangerous vicissi- stroyed. We pass on to the discussion of the diseases which mow tudes of climate and locality, yet he has thrown to the winds more down the ranks of our army. And here we meet with the can be one half of his chances of longevity. Nothing clearly demonstrated than the truth of this most grave an- most instructive facts. Seven-ninths of the mortality of the nouncement. The figures upon which the calculation is based British army are due to two classes of disease alone-namely, are stated with the coldest exactness; they are drawn from zymotic diseases, (such as fevers, diarrhoea, and cholera,) and the most undeniable authorities. The Registrar-General’s pulmonary affections; and although zymotic diseases do their Report shows that the average rate of mortality amongst civi- deadly work with more than twice the activity which they lians of the army age is 9’2 per 1000; in the country alone, display amongst civilians, yet their influence upon the soldiers 7’2. Even in Manchester, which is one of the unhealthiest is not nearly so deadly as are the destructive inroads of pultowns, it does not rise above 12 2 ; while in the army at home monary disease. In civil life, the deaths from the latter disthe average mortality is at the rate of 17-5 per 1000 men. orders amount to 6’3 per 1000 ; in the cavalry to 7’3; amongst Thus it is proved that our soldiers are killed off nearly twice the infantry of the line to 10’2; and amongst the guards to 13’8. It is very valuable and instructive to know that these as fast as the sickly operatives ’of the unhealthiest of towns. Now, put these figures in another shape, in which their mean- two classes of disease are the main sources of death in the ing may show forth yet more clearly. Instead of talking of ranks, because it at once becomes obvious that the main causes the rate per 1000, let us calculate the total numbers of the in- of this excess of mortality must be such as depend upon the glorious slain. In the fifteen years previous to 1853, the neglect of very simple and primary laws of hygiene. The main causes of disease traced by the Commissioners are deaths amongst a number of the British people equal to that of divided the army, amounted to 16,211. In the same period, out of a by them under four heads: night duty; want of exerlike number of men of the same age engaged in her Majesty’s cise and suitable employment; intemperate and debauched service, 58,139 have been swept away. Thus 41,928 men have habits; crowding and inefficient ventilation, and nuisances died in fifteen years, who should still be living. It is a whole from sewerage of barracks. The greatest influence has hitherto army whom we have sacrificed. In peace, at home, under the been ascribed to the exposure attendant upon night duty; and very eye of the Government and of the people of England, the obvious risks of disease from exposure to inclement weather at unnatural hours were thought to explain sufficiently the 42,000 picked lives have been unnaturally cut short. It must not be thought that this statement is exaggerated ; excessive mortality which has so long been known to prevail it is below the mark. The military medical system is so in the army. But the conclusion at which the Commissioners arranged that the apparent death-rates of the army are reduced have arrived is of a very opposite nature. They have found in considerably beyond their real proportions, by the preliminary the duties of the police force a close parallel to the night duties rejection of bad lives, and by the subsequent discharge of all of the soldiers, except indeed, that the former are much more soldiers in whom symptoms of incapability and disease have severe. Yet the mortality of the army is, as we have seen, appeared within the first three years of service. In order to more than twice as great as that of the police. Of the influinstitute a fair comparison, account should be taken-1st, of ence of want of fit exercise and agreeable employments the those who do not offer themselves by reason of conscious phy- Report speaks, of course, with some doubt. The soldier is sical inability; 2ndly, of those who offer themselves, and are devoured by ennui; the slave of routine, he performs merejected as unfit; 3rdly, of those who die, as invalids and chanically a series of duties in which the mind takes no share, pensioners, and whose deaths should be transferred from the and which are the more irksome because they are enforced. In civil list; 4thly, of idiots, deformed persons, lunatics, and his hours of leisure he has neither reading-room nor gymnastic other dregs of the population, unfit for this or for any other school for his recreation, and he passes his leisure in listlessly occupation. Thus the death-rates of the army are actually lounging about the barrack or the tap-room. This is a very higher than they are stated to be in this Report, and this ter- bad state of things, and no doubt a want of fit occupations rible sacrifice of forty-two thousand lives does not include all lowers at once the morale and the physique, and renders the the victims slain. From the establishment of this general fact, men more obnoxious to disease. Yet it cannot be included the Commissioners proceed to the comparison of the rates of amongst the more active agents of death. We must look still mortality amongst soldiers with those of men engaged in various deeper for the cause of mortality. We shall not find it under other occupations ; and the only occupations with which it was the third head. Intemperance prevails unquestionably in the found possible to institute a comparison were those of the most army, but to no greater extent than amongst civilians. It notably unhealthy character, as of weavers, night printers, works positive harm amongst the ranks of the one as of the miners, and policemen. Even here the advantage is most other; but its victims are not disproportionately numerous markedly with the civilians. Thus in the case of the police, amongst our soldiers, and it cannot most certainly be ranked amongst thecauses of the excess ’of military deaths. Thus the General of the Army, Dr. V. Alexander, C.H., Sir Thomas Phillips, J. R. Martin, Esq., F.R.S., Sir J. Clarke, M.D., Dr. T. Sutherland. soldier is freed from blame in the matter. It is not
individual
197
by reason of his own
vices
follies that death
would have scarcely cost a tithe of the sum which is in the case of the soldier, and indirectly in the case The great source of pulmonary disease amongst our soldiers of the civilian-lost to the State through her being at large. is declared by the Commissioners to reside in the poisoned air The result of the physical evil on the latter class of persons of the dormitories of the barracks. It will hardly be believed even more forcibly shows the necessity for State interference. that the number of cubic feet of air allowed for each soldier is It is well known that personal cleanliness, and all those social nominally much less than the allowance of the Scotch pauper, proprieties which we include under the term of hygiene, greatly and practically often does not equal it by one half. Immured tend to diminish the virulence of venereal disease. These salu. thus in foul and ill-ventilated rooms, which serve alike for tary provisions are year by year becoming more attended to. dormitories at night and sitting-rooms during the day-the! It follows, therefore, that the registered deaths from syphilis beds, perhaps, less than a foot apart-the air impregnated withL (each of which necessarily supposes extreme virulence) should miasmatic gases, products of respiration, exhalations of sewage, proportinally diminish, even if we exclude the influence of im. and effluvia from wooden tubs filled with ammoniacal de- proved methods of treatment. These are the hard figures which the Registrar-General’ posit-the soldier goes through a dull routine of depressing; L Renorts furnish on the noint :is condemned to a diet of eternal boiled and labour; beef; penal then covered with a great cape, remarkable for its spongy and absorbent properties. Finally, after being well sweated at the guard-room fire, he is turned out into the cold, damp night air, and perhaps into the rain, to mount guard. This is the favourite recipe of the Horse Guards, for breeding consumption. The fatal success with which its application has been attended Making every allowance for the increasing population, and is worthy of the ingenious stupidicy with which it is devised. leaving a broad margin for error, we have here a progressive It is thus that thirty thousand men have been slain during the increase in the number of deaths, whilst all experience teaches last fifteen years. These statements appeared at first hardly that the virulence of the disease is greatly diminished. What, credible even to the Commissioners ; but as they proceeded upon then, must be the increase in the number of cases which do not their inquiry, investigation begot belief, which in the end gave cause death, but each of which incapacitates the sufferer from his or her occupation ? way to the fullest conviction. That great class of purists who never knew temptation, who or
hastens
so soon
cure
to claim him.
- directly
.
’
.
Medical Annotations. "
PROSTITUTION :
Ne
quid nimis."
ITS MEDICAL ASPECTS.
NECESSITY, under whatever pretence it be disguised, is the great determining cause of legislation. We have, therefore, endeavoured to show, by figures which admit of no dispute and facts which none have ventured to gainsay, that unchecked prostitution, and vice which derides such feeble efforts as have hitherto been made for its control, are inflicting increasing evils, the full extent of which has hitherto been unrecognised. And if all the direct physical and moral results already enumerated are not sufficient to demonstrate the necessity for legislative interference, there yet remain other evils which more immediately affect the State; and that through a very susceptible
part-the pocket.
" Compound for sins they are inclined to By damning those they have no mind to," and who rehearse their lead-coffin principles of exclusiveness whilst yet alive, may possibly object that these figures only prove a just retribution. This proposition assumes that no foregone blame attaches to anyone but the evil-doer, and necessarily implies that its supporter knows all about itis one who could " expose himself to feel what wretches feel," without going astray, and who could have stayed and flung his stone when the conscious crowd of accusers slunk away from the presence of the One who knew their hearts. But if the correctness of the principle involved in this self-righteous argument against interference were established, there are some further statistics which altogether set aside its practical application. For it is not the direct doers of evil who chiefly suffer, Of 947 or to whom principally the wages of sin are death. deaths from syphilis in England during 1855, 579 occurred in children under one year; and of the 179 who died from the same cause in London, 134 were also infants. And these in no set aside those above be it remembered, way figures, quoted. They prove only the more cogently the necessity for State interference, as each death represents the infection of two individuals at least, the guilty parent who recovers, and the innocent child who dies. This, then, is the climax of the evil. Not alone does the state suffer-not alone does the evildoer reap in full measure the crops which spring from the " sinful lusts of the flesh," but-sooner than relax the cordon which an unchristian prudery has drawn around the subjectthe lives of innocent children are yearly sacrificed by hundreds :
Our soldiers and sailors are trained and supported solely that by their physical strength they may do the State some service. Therefore, impairment of a man’s health constitutes him, pro tanto, a bad bargain to the country, and represents the loss of so much money. Now, when we find that from 1830 to 1847 the number of soldiers annually diseased varied from 181 to 206 per 1000 men, or, in other words, that about one-fifth of the whole effective force in this country, are yearly in hospital with venereal disease for a period of twenty-two days (as calculated by Dr. Gordon), we may easily judge what is the loss sustained in this branch of the service alone. " Quos dulcis vitæ exsortes et ab ubere raptos Abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo." If the course of the diseased "femme publique,"as described in our last number, be borne in mind, it is scarcely necessary If we keep steadily in view the extreme improbability of thete to point out how glaring an instance of wasteful inconsistency being any venereal disease which has not at some time or other the above figures represent. The disease of the prostitute (and passed through the frame of a prostitute, we cannot fail to the lowest and most infected class necessarily furnishes the recognise the advisability of facilitating the cure of disease soldier’s companion) is uncared for. If, in the pursuit of amongst these women, and preventing by every possible means her miserable avocation, she infect only three soldiers, they that broadcast spreading of the evil already described. And are forthwith submitted to skilful treatment at the national such recognition has, indeed, been already officially acknowcharge, and cause a direct loss of between three and four ledged to be necessary. For the great prevalence of syphilis pounds to the State,-since the deduction from the pay in the navy has led to the appropriation of a certain number only represents the cost of their treatment. Had proper hos- of beds in the Government Hospital at Portsmouth, as Dital room been nrovided for the woman, her treatment and a sanitary provision to prevent or arrest the disease amongst
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