Medical history of the late war with Russia, &c / by William Aitken, M.D.

  • William Aitken
Date:
[1857]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical history of the late war with Russia, &c / by William Aitken, M.D. 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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    quent, or do not occur at all; subsequent ill health and morbid sensibility to causes which, under ordinary circumstances, would not induce disease, bring on veiy readily visceral disorders, and such zymotic diseases as I have mentioned; and when such mor- bid influences prevail as that of the choleraic constitution (which extended itself, as it then did, over the larger portion of Western Em-ope), the condition of the array during its residence in Bulgaria was in the most susceptible condition possible for the development of that disease. A glance at the inhabitants of malarious countries or districts, shows that the range of disorders produced by the poison of malaria is very extensive. The jaundiced complexion, the stunted growtli, the stupid countenance, the shortened life, attest that habitual exposure to malaria saps the energy of every mental and bodily function, and drags its victims to an early grave. Fever and ague, although two of the most prominent features of malarious influences, are as a drop of water in the ocean, when compared with the other less obtnisive but more dangerous maladies that silently but effectually disorganize the vital struc- tures of the human fabric, under the operation of the deleterious and invisible poison.—{Dr. James Johnson.) From the anxiety shown to acquire information, which com- petent medical men are alone able to obtain, the moral obliquity which leads those high in authority and in the direction of the movements of the army to ignore and neglect the knowledge and information so obtained, and always gladly given by the medical officers, is most inexplicable. For, notwithstanding the anxiety to get information, it is acknowledged by General Bentinck that it is not usual to take the opinion of any medical officer in the selection of the ground to encamp the various divisions of an army upon, unless something occur to render it necessary. What that something may be we are not enlightened upon ; but if the method of research I have applied to illustrate the pathology of the past is correct in its results, it is to be hoped that the military element of the army will in future put a higher value upon the services of their medical officers, and that they will seek, obtain, and act upon their professional advice in regard to every move- ment of the army which may affect the sanative position of the soldiers, and before that mysterious something shall betray itself in the subsequent melancholy results which have deci- mated, not only in this instance, but in others, the best and noblest of armies. Note.—A statement made in the concluding paragraph of the last chapter, with reference to the ambulance corps, on the authority of the Report on the State of the Hospitals, is shown by the Report of Sir John M'Niell and Sir Alex- ander Tulloch to have been incorrect. Only 35 of them died at Varna, out of a total of 350. (See pages 41 and 194 of Commissioners' Report.)
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