A manual of practical hygiene : prepared especially for use in the medical service of the Army / by Edmund A. Parkes.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of practical hygiene : prepared especially for use in the medical service of the Army / by Edmund A. Parkes. 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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    WAR. The trade of the soldier is war. For war he is selected, maintained, and taught. As a force at the command of a government, the army is also an agent for maintaining public order, but tliis is a minor object, and only occasionally called for, when the civil power is incompetent. In theory, an army should be so trained for war as to be ready to take the field at literally a moment's notice. The various parts composing it should be so organised that, almost as quickly as the telegram flies, they can be brought together at any point, prompt to commence those combined actions by which a body of men are moved, fed, clothed, kept supplied with munitions of war, maintained in health or cured if sick, and ready to undertake all the engineer- ing, mechanical, and strategical and tactical movements which constitute the art of war. That an organisation so perfect shall be carried out, it is necessary that all its parts shall be equally efficient; if one fails, the whole machine breaks down. The strength of a chain is the strength of its weakest link, and this may be said with equal truth of an avmj. Commissariat, transport, medical, and engineering appliances are as essential as the arts of tactics and strategy. It is a narrow and a dangerous view which sees in war merely the movements of the soldier, without recognising the less seen agencies which insure that the soldier shall be armed, fed, clothed, healthy, and vigorous. During peace, the soldier is trained for war. ^^Tiat is meant by training for war 1 Not merely that the soldier shall be taught to use liis weapons with effect, and to act Ms part in that machine, where something of mecham- cal accuracy is imprinted on human beings, but that he shall also laiow hoAV to meet and individually cope with the various conditions of war, which differ so much from those of peace. It is in the natiu-e of war to reinduce a sort of barbarism. The arts and appliances of peace, Avhich tend, almost without our care, to shelter, and clothe, and feed us, disappear. The man reverts in part to his pristine condition, and often must minister as he best may to his o\m wants. No doubt, the State will aid him in this ; but it is impo.ssible to do so as completely as in peace. Often, indeed, an army in war has maintained itself in complete in- dependence of its base of supplies, and in almost every campaign there is more or less of this independence of action. In peace, the soldier, as far as clothing, feeding, shelter, and cleanliness are concerned, is almost reduced to the condition of a passive agent. Everything is done for him, and all the appliances of science are brought info play to