Two Lectures on Chronic Laryngitis and Chronic Pharyngitis: Their Pathology, Symptoms, and Treatment
Authors: D. Newman
Journal: BMJ (1885)

country, provided hygienic principles be carefully applied to the important matters of air, water, food, clothing, exercise and rest, employ.ment and amusement, so far as these can be regulated with due regard to the exigencies and necessary discipline of the public service.We have seen how, not only in such favoured climates as the Cape of Good Hope and Mediterranean, but in remote regions, as the highest Antarctic latitudes, in the Red Sea, the West Indies, and in Northern China, the very highest standard of health and lowest mortality can be main- tained for considerable periods, while even on such trying stations as the West Coast of Africa, Central America, Bengal, Ceylon, and Southern China, sickness may be kept down to as low a figure, and mortality and invaliding to even a less ratio than is found in the home service.The chief exceptions I have had occasion to note as occurring in the Baltic in the first year of the Russian war, and in Central and Southern China in our last war withl that empire, could be fairly accounted for.In the first instance, the physical character of the men was far below thc average.Hurriedly recruited on the sudden outbreak of hostili- ties, often of unsoun(l constitution, and not inured to hardship, they were exposed to incessant and most laborious duty in keeping the sea and blockading the Russiani ports in the most inclement season of a wretched climate.Most of these men were ill-fitted to bear the fatigues and perils of war, which are always more trying in the form of sickness than of combat; and, in the first Baltic campaign, they suffered greatly from disease.In the second instance, in China, a body of men who had been originally of exceptionally good physique, but tried by two years' con- tinuious service in the tropics, and still more by the dissipations of Hong Kong, made a sudden and disastrous plunge into war with more than its usual horrors.They were immediately after exposed to the deadlv climate of the Yaingtse in the hot season, with spirits depressed by our heavy losses in action, and were less able to encounter the epi- demic diseases which assailed them.To this may be added various pr;vations, to some extent unavoidable, and one of the most important of which was that of the pure distilled water they had been so long in the habit of using, both for drink and ablution, and with so much advantage befoie their arrival on the China station.Too much attention cannot be paid to such details, all important in maintaining the health and efficiency of nmariners.The Royal Navy of England has been a grand scllool of public hygiene for more than two centuries.Nowhere can experiments of the life-saving class be carried out more perfeotly, and on a larger scale, than afloat, where all are circumstanced alike in regard to climate, food, clothing, exercise, and discipline.As the terrible scourges of typhus, dysentery, malignant ulcers, gangrene, and scurvy have long been banished from our home-fleets, so we may look confidently forward to the time when such minor evils as still exist, chiefly on foreign service, shall also disappear, and when that important section of our countrymen who form the first line of our national defence, and protect our world-wide colonies and