Observations on the means of forming and maintaining troops in health in different climates and localities / by Edward Balfour.

Date:
[1845]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the means of forming and maintaining troops in health in different climates and localities / by Edward Balfour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    3/12
    OBSERVATIONS ON THE EANS OF FORMING AND MAINTAINING TROOPS IN HEALTH IN DIFFERENT CLIMATES AND LOCALITIES. By Assistant Surgeon Edward Balfour, Madras Army. Read before the Statistical Society of London, on the 21st April I6ld^/y Political reasons may render it expedient to garrison a district or a i.untry with soldiers, whose foreign origin, and language and customs, esvent their entertaining feelings in common with the natives of the land nom they may be required to coerce; but, where this is not required, from i higher state of health, and, therefore, of efficiency, which troops raised tong the indigenous inhabitants of a country retain, it is of importance to i ploy them in their own land in preference to strangers; and, fortunately the tranquillity of our rule, the people of India interest themselves so little tthe wars that occur, and hostile feelings so rapidly subside, that the duties <our troops have become rather those of police, to check petty disturbances, II give effect to the orders of the civil authority, than of stern military rcion to overawe the countries in which they are located. The people of Ilia may thus be very generally employed as soldiers in their native land ; il it cannot be too prominently noticed, that the utmost care in selecting iruits, or attending to the men’s health when enlisted, seems unable to retain eign troops in equal health with that enjoyed by soldiers when natives of countries in which they are serving; in other words, that foreigners not be kept equal in health and efficiency with the native inhabitants. [here seem to be circumstances, not well understood, inherent in a military , which cause among soldiers, even in time of peace, and when serving in ir native country, a somewhat higher rate of sickness and mortality than urs among people of the same age in civil life ; and in nearly all the foreign ions occupied by the British troops, the deaths among the soldiers exceed mount the number that are annually carried off by disease and other causes itheir native land. The mortality among foreigners residing in any of countries of the globe is an important subject of inquiry to the British ion, who are scattered over so great a portion of it, and it is also a point of at importance in any inquiry into the causes of sickness among the soldiers he empire, who for the most part have to serve abroad. So far as statistical inquiries have extended, there is no country, either perate or tropical, where the mortality among the indigenous civil inha- bits, between the ages of 20 and 40, seems materially to exceed 16 per DO annually; and probably there is no country where troops composed