Notes on the medical history and statistics of the British Legion of Spain; comprising the results of gun-shot wounds, in relation to important questions in surgery / [Sir Rutherford Alcock].
- Rutherford Alcock
- Date:
- 1838
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Notes on the medical history and statistics of the British Legion of Spain; comprising the results of gun-shot wounds, in relation to important questions in surgery / [Sir Rutherford Alcock]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![in the Legion, it was one in seven, in its first twenty-three months. But inasmuch as the proportionate number of sick was much greater in the Peninsular army, so it is to be pre- sumed that there was a much greater proportion of slight cases admitted; and as an increase of our sickness of 5,000 for such slight cases has been allowed, so that number should be added to those treated in general hospital, raising the mortality to one in nine. But we have seen, whenever re- cruits are instanced, and all examples I could find on record have been produced, that the mortality in the best command- ed regiments of the service, the guards, 40th fusileers, 7th regiment, 91st, &c., varies from one-half to one-fourth, and the lowest one-seventh. Not only does the amount of sickness on the last twenty- two months of the Peninsular army, by the official returns quoted, seem greater than that of the Legion, but the pro- portionate mortality upon the whole period to the numbers serving, presents a similar result: thus, the deaths in thirty months were 18,513: if we allow 5,000 for the last eight ~ months, and supposing that 60,000 troops had been in the country, the mortality or loss is ] in 4. No one, I think, will suspect me of a desire as absurd as it would be futile, to draw an invidious comparison between the two forces; but it was necessary, after stating frankly and without comment a mortality in hospital of more than double that of the Peninsular army, that I should show the vast dis- parity to be more apparent than real, and that comparing the Legion’s worst period of sickness with similar periods on re- cruits in the British army, results not less disastrous were sometimes inevitable, in spite of all the abundant means, and the long-tried zeal and acknowledged talents of the medi- cal staff of that army. Nor does it in any degree exculpate the Spanish authori- ties, to prove that some divisions or corps of the British army D](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33279147_0045.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
