Americans, there need surely be no disease and death from privation.  This may be confidently said while we have before us the case of the British in the Crimea during the second winter of the war.  A sanitary commission had been sent out; and under their authority, and by the help of experience, everything was rectified.  The healthy were stronger than ever; there was scarcely any sickness; and the wounded recovered without drawback.  As the British ended, the Americans ought to begin.

On the last two heads of the soldier’s case there is little to be said here, because the American troops are at home, and not in a perilous foreign climate, and on the shores of a remote sea.  Their drill can hardly be appointed for wrong hours, or otherwise mismanaged.  In regard to transport, they have not the embarrassment of crowds of sick and wounded, far away in the Black Sea, without any adequate supply of mules and carriages, after the horses had died off, and without any organization of hospital ships at all equal to the demand.  Neither do they depend for clothing and medicines on the arrival of successive ships through the storms of the Euxine; and they will never see the dreary spectacle of the foundering of a noble vessel just arriving, in November, with ample stores of winter clothing, medicines, and comforts, which six hours more would have placed in safety.  Under the head of transport, they ought to have nothing to suffer.

Having gone through the separate items, and looking at the case as a whole, we may easily perceive that in America, as in England and France and every other country, the responsibility of the soldier’s health in camp is shared thus.

The authorities are bound so to arrange their work as that there shall be no hitch through which disaster shall reach the soldiery.  The relations between the military and medical authorities must be so settled and made clear as that no professional jealousy among the doctors shall keep the commanding officers in the dark as to the needs—­of their men, and that no self-will or ignorance in commanding officers shall neutralize the counsels of the medical men.  The military authorities must not depend on the report of any doctor who may be incompetent as to the provision made for the men’s health, and the doctor must be authorized to represent the dangers of a bad encampment without being liable to a recommendation to keep his opinion to himself till he is asked for it.  These particular dangers are best obviated by the appointment of sanitary officers, to attend the forces, and take charge of the health of the army, as the physicians and surgeons take charge of its sickness.  If, besides, there is a separate department between the commissariat and the soldiery, to see that the comforts provided are actually brought within every man’s grasp, the authorities will have done their part.