The Sanitary Commission of the United States Army : a succinct narrative of its works and purposes / Sanitary Commission.
- United States Sanitary Commission
- Date:
- 1864
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Sanitary Commission of the United States Army : a succinct narrative of its works and purposes / Sanitary Commission. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![the Sanitary Commission, viz.: from Jannary to June, 1855 ; and, 2d. A period of six months, from January to June, 1856, after those works for Sanitary improvement had produced their legitimate results. [All sickness and deaths in the Medical Staff, among Commissioned OfRcers, the Land Transport, and the Mounted Corps, as well as all martial wounds or deaths in battle, are excluded from these tables; also nearly 5,000 cases of sickness that failed to be properly registered during the early period of the campaign.] Return Khowing totril sickness and morUility from Disease in the British army in the East, from April Wth, 1864, .0 July 1st, 1856. The rate per cent, of the entire Army— sick and dying from disease—during two periods of six months each, as above stated. 1 85 5. 185G. SnMBER OF CASES 07 SICKNESS. ite p. ct. 'deaths. ,te p. ct. f deaths. 1 31,230 12,882 5.5,76.5 7,574 3,452 Bowels.... 644 5,950 4,602 January February .... 34,8 23.0 9.75 8.16 9.3 7.7 —.18 — .03 2,096 3,301 173 19.3 — .09 14.3 l'.86 7!- — .OT Ulcei s and Boils 12,.542 May 16.2 1.69 — .06 3,2 '■ 28.3 2.65 3'.6 —.02 162,473 18,058 28.82 41.7 —.5 * * This (—.5) shows that the mortality during those last six months was only hnlf of oneper cent., or, at t le rate of exactly oneper cent, per annum,—which would give ten deaths to every 1,000 men in service. Thus the fact is demonstrated, by the most unerring statistics, that dur- ing the period beginning eight months after the commencement of re- forms by the Sanitary Commission in the Crimea, the rate of sickness ia the array was reduced to less than one-third of that which prevailed until those reforms were inaugurated, the exact ratio of that decrease being as 1359 to4l7,or J-|2-! While the mortality—which is the more significant test of the utility of Sanitary improvements—presents the marvelous contrast of 28.82 to —.5, or 5704 to 100 !! i. e., the rate of mortality from disease in the army, after the work of Sanitary reform had been fully inaugurated, ■was less than one ffty-sevcnth of the rate of mortality that prevailed dur- ing the same length of time preceding the reform. It is worthy of remark that, while the statistics show that considerable sickness continued to prevail during the latter or irnjjroved period, the re- cords of the Army Hospitals exhibit the fact that the particular diseases that were most reynarkahly diminished wei'e those which Sanitary mea- sures are known to prevent or greatly diminish, viz., the Zymutic diseases, such as fevers, and those maladies that are so largely represented in the list given in the foregoing table.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21459460_0311.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
