THE NUMBER OF DEATHS IN 100,000.[85] Annual Average for
10 years, 1837 to 1846. 1859.
Household Cavalry 1,039 427
Dragoon-Guards 1,208 794
Foot-Guards 1,872 859
Infantry Regiments 1,706 758
Men in healthy
districts of England 723
The Foot-Guards, which lost annually 1,415 from diseases of the chest before the reform, lost only 538 in 100,000 from the same cause in 1859.[86]
Among the infantry of the line, the annual attacks of fever were reduced to a little more than one-third, and the deaths from this cause to two-fifths of their former ratio. The cases of zymotic disease were diminished 33 per cent., and the mortality from this class of maladies was reduced 68 per cent.[87]
The same happy accounts of improvement come from every province and every military station where the British Government has placed its armies.
Our present army is in better condition than those of other times and other nations; and more and more will be done for this end. The Government has already admitted the Sanitary Commission into a sort of copartnership in the management of the army, and hereafter the principles of this excellent and useful association will be incorporated with, and become an inseparable part of, the machinery of war, to be conducted by the same hands that direct the movements of the armies, ever present and efficient to meet all the natural wants of the soldier, and to reduce his danger of sickness and mortality, as nearly as possible, to that of men of the same age at home.
AN ARAB WELCOME.
I.
Because thou com'st, a tired guest,
Unto my tent, I bid thee rest.
This cruse of oil, this skin of wine,