SICKNESS AND MORTALITY OF THE ARMY IN WAR.
Thus far the sickness and mortality of the army in time of peace only has been considered. The experience of war tells a more painful story of the dangers of the men engaged in it. Sir John Pringle states, that, in the British armies that were sent to the Low Countries and Germany, in the years 1743 to 1747, a great amount of sickness and mortality prevailed. He says, that, besides those who were suffering from wounds, "at some periods more than one-fifth of the army were in the hospitals." "One regiment had over one-half of its men sick." "In July and August, 1743, one-half of the army had the dysentery." "In 1747, four battalions," of 715 men each, "at South Beveland and Walcheren, both in field and in quarters, were so very sickly, that, at the height of the epidemic, some of these corps had but one hundred men fit for duty; six-sevenths of their numbers were sick."[12] "At the end of the campaign the Royal Battalion had but four men who had not been ill." And "when these corps went into winter-quarters, their sick, in proportion to their men fit for duty, were nearly as four to one."[13] In 1748, dysentery prevailed. "In one regiment of 500 men, 150 were sick at the end of five weeks; 200 were sick after two months; and at the end of the campaign, they had in all but thirty who had never been ill." "In Johnson's regiment sometimes one-half were sick; and in the Scotch Fusileers 300 were ill at one time."[14]
The British army in Egypt, in 1801, had from 103 to 261 and an average of 182 sick in each thousand; and the French army had an average of 125 in 1,000, or one-eighth of the whole, on the sick-list.[15]
In July, 1809, the British Government sent another army, of 39,219 men, to the Netherlands. They were stationed at Walcheren, which was the principal seat of the sickness and suffering of their predecessors, sixty or seventy years before. Fever and dysentery attacked this second army as they had the first, and with a similar virulence and destructiveness. In two months after landing,
Sept. 13, 7,626 were on the sick-list. " 19, 8,123 " " " 21, 8,684 " " " 23, 9,046 " "
In ninety-seven days 12,867 were sent home sick; and on the 22d of October there were only 4,000 effective men left fit for duty out of this army of about 40,000 healthy men, who had left England within less than four months. On the 1st of February of the next year, there were 11,513 on the sick-list, and 15,570 had been lost or disabled. Between January 1st and June of the same year, (1810,) 36,500 were admitted to the hospitals, and 8,000, or more than 20 per cent., died, which is equal to an annual rate of 48 per cent, mortality.