A letter to the Right Honourable the Secretary at War, on sickness and mortality in the West Indies : being a review of Captain Tulloch's statistical report / by Sir Andrew Halliday.

  • Halliday, Andrew, Sir, 1781-1839.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Right Honourable the Secretary at War, on sickness and mortality in the West Indies : being a review of Captain Tulloch's statistical report / by Sir Andrew Halliday. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    had proved to be of importance in preserving their health; but not one of his suggestions was attended to, and some of the most obvious of his recommendations for clean- liness and comfort, and for cooking their unwholesome messes, were never even adverted to by the military authorities. The late good old Barrack-Master at Barbados, (Co- lonel Diggins) found out a process by which the most filthy and unfit ingredient then, and still, in use for stuffing the soldiers’ palliasses, might be made a most clean and comfortable article of bedding, and twenty times more economical than that in use; and that it was so, was fully certified by Mr. Gunning, the Inspector-General of Hospitals at the time; but as it did not suit the Com- missary-General to have any additional trouble imposed upon his department, and because it was recommended by a Doctor—no matter how much the poor soldier might suffer—no matter how often he might be driven to sleep upon the bare boards in the open galleries, or perhaps forced to the grog-shop to escape the myriads of bugs and vermin that were hatched in the stuffing of his palliass, and brought forth in swarms, ready to devour his body—no matter what number of punishments might take place for irregularities in a manner forced upon the unhappy sufferer, or what amount of sickness or mortality might ensue from the soldier finding it impossible to enjoy one moment of rest or of sound sleep—no matter as to all these considerations, the Commissariat routine could not be interfered with; the crude Indian corn husks continued in use up till 1836, and I fear still con- tinue. In this case, my Lord, two lines of a General Order would not only have done away with the nuisance,