The Sanitary Commission of the United States Army : a succinct narrative of its works and purposes.
- Date:
- 1864
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Sanitary Commission of the United States Army : a succinct narrative of its works and purposes. 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.
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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 thosp works for Sanitary improvement had produced their legitimate results, [All sickness and deaths in the Medical Staff, among Commissioned Officers, the Land Transport, and the Mounted Corps, as well as all jnarlial 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 shotDing total sickness and morinlity from Disease in the British (irmij in the East, from April Wth, 1S54, to July 1st, 1856. MUMBEB 07 CJiSES OP SICKNESS. From Fevers Diseases of the Lungs Bowels Cholera Scurvy Ophthalmia Ulcers and Boils All other diseases Total number of oases 102,473 81,2311 12,883 55,763 7,5T4 2.096 3,301 12,.n42 87,5a8 8,452 644 5,950 4,502 178 8,2 18,058 T7i6 rate per cent, of the entire Army— sick and dying from diseaKe—during two periods of six months each, aa above stated. 1855. January.. February . March April May June Total.... 84.8 23.0 19.3 14.3 10.2 23.3 135.9 ties 9.75 8.16 4.68 1.80 i.ra 2.65 28.82, 1856. 9.3 7.7 8.1 7.- 6.- 8.6 °-3 — a a, •a ■So —.18 —.08 .09 .07 .06 —.03 41.7 —.5 ♦ * This (—.5) shows that the mortality during those last si.t months was only half of one per 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 fait 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 in 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 ! 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 5764 to 100 !! i. c, the rate of mortality from disease in the array, after the work of Sanitary reform had been fully inaugurated, was less than one ffty-seventh 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 improved period, the re- cords of the Array Hospitals exhibit the fact that the particular diseases that were most remarJcably diminished were those which Sanitary mea- sures are known to prevent or greatly diminish, viz., the Zymotic 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/b21973593_0311.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
