WANT OF SANITARY PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.
There are, and have been, faults—grievous, destructive, and costly faults—in all connected with armies, from the Governments at the head, down through all grades of officers, to the men in the ranks: they are faults of theory and faults of practice,—of plan in those who direct, and of self-management in those whose whole duty is to obey. The root of this is the failure to fully understand and count the cost, and to prepare to meet it as men generally do in the management of their common affairs. In civil life, when prudent men intend to effect any purpose by the aid of motive power, whether of water, steam, horse, or other kind, they carefully consider the means of generating that power, and the best and safest ways of applying and expending it. They include this in their plans, and make provision accordingly. Precisely determining the extent of the purpose they design to effect, and the amount of force that is and will be needed, they make their arrangements to provide or generate and maintain so much as long as they intend to do the work. During the whole process, they carefully guard and treasure it up and allow none to be wasted or applied to any other than the appointed purpose. But in the use and management of the vital machines, the human bodies, by which the purposes of war are to be accomplished, nations are less wise. There are few, perhaps no records of any Government, which, in creating, maintaining and operating with an army, has, at and during the same time, created and established the never-failing means of keeping the machinery of war in the best working order, by sustaining the health and force of the men in unfailing fulness.
War is carried on by a partnership between the Government and soldiers, to which the Government contributes money and directing skill, and assumes the responsibility of management, and the soldiers contribute their vital force. In the operation of this joint concern, both the money of the nation and the lives of the men are put at risk. Although, by the terms of the contract, the Government is presumed to expend its money and the soldiers' vital force to the extent that may be necessary to effect the objects of the association, it has no right to do this for any other purpose or on any other condition. It may send the men to battle, where they may lose in wounds or in death a part or all that they have contributed; but it has no right, by any negligence or folly on its own part or in its agents, to expend any of the soldiers' health or strength in hunger, nakedness, foul air, miasma, or disease. There is a received glory attached to wounds, and even to death, received in a struggle with the enemies of one's country, and this is offered as a part of the compensation to the warrior for the risk that he runs; but there is no glory in sickness or death from typhus, cholera, or dysentery, and no compensation of this kind comes to those who suffer or perish from these, in camp or military hospital.