Florence Nightingale

“ To this there is the simple reply that, during this present century, there has been an average loss, from death alone, of 69 men out of every 1,000 per annum—it matters not how the mortality has been distributed—that there is every reason to believe that, if things go on as they have done in this present century, we shall go on losing our troops at the rate of 30, 50, 70, 90, 100 and upwards, per 1,000. And all the arithmetic in the world cannot conceal the fact that the law, by which men perish in India under existing sanitary negligence, is 69 per 1,000 per annum ”

“ Every day it is left undone adds its quota of inefficiency to the British Army, and its thousands of deaths to the native population. Danger is common to European and to native. Many of the best men this country ever had have fallen victims to the same causes of disease which have decimated the population of Hindostan. And so it will be till the India Government has fulfilled its vast responsibility towards those great multitudes who are no longer strangers and foreigners, but as much the subjects of our beloved Queen as any one of us. ”

“ They have reduced "climate" to its proper dimensions and influence, and they have shown that, just as hot moist weather at home calls people to account for sanitary neglects and acts of intemperance, so does the climate of India call to account the same people there. There is not a shadow of proof that India was created to be the grave of the British race. The evidence, on the contrary, is rather in the other direction, and shows that all that the climate requires is that men shall adapt their social habits and customs to it ”

“ But what at home can be done in education, if we neglect physical laws? How does education progress here, without means of cleanliness, of decency, or health? The school lessons of a month are sapped in an hour. ”

“ There is no reason to hope that any station has what in this country would be called a pure water supply. And at some it is to be feared that, when men drink water, they drink cholera with it.
The construction of barracks, where men have to pass their whole period of service, is another illustration of how completely home civilisation is reversed in India. All our best soldiers have been brought up in country cottages. And when in barracks at home, there are rarely more than from twelve to twenty men in a room. ”

“ Sir Charles Napier says, "That every evil from which British troops have suffered has been laid at its door." "The effects of man's imprudence are attributed to climate; if a man gets drunk, the sun has given him a headache, and so on." In regard to Delhi, he says, "Every garden, if not kept clean, becomes a morass; weeds flourish, filth runs riot and the grandest city in India has the name of being insalubrious, although there is nothing evil about it that does not appear to be of man's own creation." ”

“ Even now, the Sunderbunds, where every sanitary evil is to be found in its perfection, are nursing a form of plague increasing yearly in intensity, covering a larger and larger area, and drawing slowly round the capital of India itself. ”

“ But the main causes of disease in India, want of drainage, want of water-supply, for stations and towns, want of proper barracks and hospitals, remain as before in all their primitive perfection. Of this there is no doubt. ”

“ The craving for spirits, induced by this regulation habit of tippling, leads to increase of drunkenness—so that, what with over-eating, over-drinking, total idleness, and vice springing directly from these, the British soldier in India has small chance indeed of coping with the climate, so-called. The regulation-allowance of raw spirit which a man may obtain at the canteen is no less than 181⁄2 gallons per annum ”

“ To take another illustration:—Our home British population is about the most active in the world. In fact we in this country consider exercise and health inseparable; but as soon as the same men go to India, they are shut up all day in their hot, close barrack-rooms, where they also eat and sleep; they are not allowed to take exercise; all their meals are eaten in the hottest part of the day, and served to them by native servants ”

“ The Indian social state of the British soldier is not only the reverse of the social state of the soldier at home, and of the class from which he is taken, but there is a great exaggeration in the wrong direction. Yet people are surprised that British soldiers die in India; and they lay the whole blame on the climate. ”

“ But it is not for the soldier alone we speak. The report has a much deeper meaning and intent than this:—it aims at nothing less than to bring the appliances of a higher civilisation to the natives of India. Such revelations are made, especially in the reports from the stations, with regard to the sanitary condition of these, as to be almost incredible. Everywhere the people are suffering from epidemic diseases; fevers, dysenteries, cholera—constant epidemics we may call them, and constant high death-rates (how high can never be known, because there is no registration) . ”

“ The military authorities in India have also been actively engaged in improving the soldier's condition. And several of the worst personal causes of ill-health to which the soldier was in former times exposed have been or are being removed. The introduction of soldiers' gardens, trades, and workshops, which was begun in India a number of years since, has seen its happy results. The men have begun to find out that it is better to work than to sleep and to drink, even during the heat of the day. ”

“ The Royal Commission on the sanitary state of the army in India, whose two folio volumes of report and appendix constitute a new social starting point for Indian civilisation—has shown that, unless the health of British troops in India can be improved, and the enormous death-rate reduced, this country will never be able to hold India with a British army. ”

“ But as soon as the soldier comes to India he is put into a room with 100, or 300, and, in one case, with as many as 600 men. Just when the principle of sub-division into a number of detached barracks becomes of, literally, vital importance, the proceeding is reversed. And the men are crowded together under circumstances certain, even in England, to destroy their health. ”

“ There is not a single station drained. If such a state of things existed at home, we should know that we have fevers, cholera, and epidemics to expect. But hitherto only a few enlightened people have expected anything of the kind from these same causes in India (although they are always happening) .
As regards water, there is certainly not a single barrack in India, which is supplied, in our sense of the term, at all. There are neither water-pipes nor drain-pipes. Water is to be had either from tanks, into which all the filth on the neighbouring surface may at any time be washed by the rains ”

“ At gymnastics the men get strength to bear the heat, though Highland regiments cannot quite rival themselves at games in the Highlands. The men are paraded for gymnastics at first, but like the exercise so much that they continue it of their own accords. ”

“ Assuming the strength of the Indian army at 73,000 British troops—and taking the death-rate at present alone, without the sickness and invaliding—such an army, with this present death-rate, will lose, on an average of years, an entire brigade of 5,037 men per annum. ”

“ The plague and pestilence is the ordinary state of things. The extraordinary is when these sweep over large tracts, gathering strength in their course, to pass over gigantic mountain ranges and to spread their ravages over Western Asia and Europe. ”

“ Water is drawn in skins, carried in skins on the backs of men or bullocks, and poured into any sort of vessels in the barracks for use. The quantity of water is utterly insufficient for health, and as to the quality, the less said about that, the better. ”

“ The time has not yet arrived for the pressure of the death-rate it discloses to be fully experienced, because the present large army is comparatively new to the country. But, unless active measures are taken by the India Government and by the military authorities to give effect to the recommendations of the Commission, it is unhappily certain that the mortality will increase with the length of service. ”

“ In short, work and all kinds of exercise cause sickly men to flourish. One regiment, sick of scurvy, and not recovering even at one of the healthiest stations, was cured by working at a mountain road in the rains, with only temporary huts for shelter. ”

“ There is a certain aptitude amongst other nations which enables them to adapt themselves, more or less, to foreign climates and countries. But, wherever you place your Briton, you may feel quite satisfied that he will care nothing about climates. ”

“ As for trades, I have seen the balance-sheets of 32 battalions of infantry, and of five regiments of cavalry in Bengal, for six months ending June, 1863; and these brave fellows are actually making money. The wages paid to men for working in the half-year were £28,237. ”