Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-06-13
Cause of the Death of Soldiers VIVA Does
the Soldier Die OfS

If spy ore had been asked a short time
since (ssys DR.. Wynter) what body of men
presented the NEST healthy lives in Her
Msjesty's dominiens, the reply might reason
ably have been, Her Msjesty's Foot Guards.
Recruited at the age of nineteen, princi-
paliy from among the agricultural popUla.
ton, submitted to the critical examination
of the inspecting surgeon, tried in wind aud
limb, and tested at every point, the would
be soldier must be proved an athlete, or re
nOunce forever the hope Of wearing Her
Msiesty's uniform.
Absorbed into the picked corps of the
army; quartered either in metropolitan bar.
racks, or within a stones throw Of the palace
of the Sovereign; clothed, fed and housed,
and tended in sickness by the State, and
only in the face of great emergencies re-
quired to brave the dangers of foreign
service; the weak and incapable instantly
weeded out of the ranBs-his does indeed
seem to be a select life, with which no other
among the laboring classes would appear to
be comparable. Yet, take the uuhealthiest
trades in ~England-the pallid tailor, as he
sits at his board, or the miner who lives in
the bowels of the earth-and the percentage
of death in their ranks is not nearly SO great
as in those of the magnificent guards. This
fact has been established by official iuyesti-
cation.
What is the matter? it will be asked.
What does the soldier die of? The answer is
short and simple. He dies of ennui. He has
nc employ ment but the drill and its duties ;
these are of the most monotonous and unin-
teTestiDg description, so much 80 that you
can rot increase their amount without weary
ing and disgusting him. All he has to do is
under restraint; he is not like a working
man or an artisan a working man will dig,
and his mind is his own an artisan is in
terested in the work on which he is engaged
but a soldier has to give you all his atten'
tioD, and he has nothing to show for the
work done. The men chafe and drink them
selves to death under modes of life so OPP
posed to the out door labor in which they
have been reared. The affiuent upper classes,
although in every other respect placed in the
best sanitary condition, are shorter lived
than the agricultural laborer, for the simple
reason that, having but little active duty to
perform, they suffer from ennui, which begets
dissipation. The soldier, when not in active
service, shares with the wealthy this cause
OF increased mortality, without sharing IN
their other favorable conditions.
AS a remedy for this, DR.. Wynter recon-
mends that the soldier should do for himself
whatever he can perform without injury to
his health, morals, or discipline; that he be
taught 10 build his own hut, to dig bis own
well, to make his W roads, and mend his
W. clothes; that those who have been
trained to mechanical trades should be
selected to perform much of the work of the
army. He insists that more confidence is to
be placed in a system in which the artisan
soldier will reap the fruits of his labor, than
in athletic games, which are not to be
neglected, but which become irksome when
they are e%njoined upon the soldier by regu-
lation. Work, within reasonable limits, is
far more healthful than play, which leaves
no result at all.