HEALTH OF THE ARMY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 143, 9 August 1911, Page 7

HEALTH OF THE ARMY.

A FIGHT WITH DISEASE. The improvement in the health of tlie Bi itisii Army in India dining the last hfty years has been very striking .Prior to the Mutiny little or no care seems to have boon taken of the soldier. We have heard a veteran of those far-off days describe how his regiment marched under the killing sun in tiie torture of heavy uniform designed for the Home climate, and how, Oven when men fell with sunstroke, the colonel refused to give the soldiers any relief. The “Pioneer,” commenting on this year’s report on (lie health of the Army, says that “for the hundred years that followed the first arrival of a King’s regiment in the country it was never supposed that the existence of British soldiers out hero could bo anything else but unhealthy and precarious. They lived liard and drank hard; and cholera, dysentery, and fevers were always at hand to take toll of constitutions weakened by the fatigues of campaigning or by the mere effects of the climate on men badly dressed, badly fed, and too often badly housed.” After the Mutiny public opinion demanded that something should be done for rho soldier. Fifty years ago the Bengal deatli rate among British soldiers was 7-4 per 1000, the Bombay rate 51, and the Madras rate 39. By 1909 the death rate for the whole country had been pulled down to 15.4, in 1909 it was 6.25, and last year it was as low as 4.66. Ten years ago tbe enteric cases numbered 970, and tbe deaths 289. Last year they were 335 and 40 1 respectively. The malarial cases decreased by 5600 compared with 1909.' The reduction in the total number of deaths from all causes .in ten years meant a saving of 600 lives. It must be remembered that the system of short service has somcthing'to do with the improvement, for under the old long

service conditions no amount of good management could have obtained such results; but the improvement is still a triumph for those concerned. It is attributed not only to the work of the Army Medical Corps, but also to the higher standard of education, and the spread of organised games and recreation. Every man in the ranks is supplied with a copy of the report, so that lie may see the good results of living in the right way.