It is not, however, for the purpose of repeating the tale of the heavy losses of our army in Bulgaria, that I make these remarks. It is in order to indicate what a, weakening and deleterious effect the residence in that country exerted on the survivors, and how much its effects must have told on the issue of disease and accident afterwards. There is no one fact which more completely illustrates this pernicious influence, than what all surgeons who served in Bulgaria will remember, that numbers of men, without being absolutely diseased, or yet so ill as to be fit for hospital, or perhaps even for medical treatment of any kind, yet fell off in appearance, lost appetite, flesh, and colour, became listless and weak; and that almost every one who had seen the campaign out, was conscious of a considerable difference in his state of health after he The standard of health, The very serious effect which inaction has in determining disease in;in Tin: CAMPAIGN IN BULGLABIA, ihort, waa lowered, tinvital forces were diminished previous t> embarkation for the Crimea in September; ainl though a state of sickness had not been established that prelude to it existed which wanted only a determining cause to develop it. This " unsatisfactory condition" was well shown during tin- short inarches to the place of embarkation, by the number of men who u fell out,'' and the 1; proportion who were unable to carry their packs. It was also officially recognised in the order by which the commanding officers of regiments had the option of making the men land without their kits, on disembarkation at Old Fort. There is no doubt that the spirit infused into the men by of employment had a good effect on their health at the period of embarkation for the Crimea, but still the elmlera did not leave them. From BOOQ the transports burials toi.k place daily during the transit to Old Kurt. The heavy lain which drenched the unsheltered army during it> first bivouac, uave the the Alma, one of the army, needs no illegible in the scan of the first
In the vineyards of the Balbec our soldiers ate voraciously of the grapes which there hung in such tempting clusters, and drank immoderately of the streams which, splashed and muddied by the hot wheels of tumbrils and guns, and the dusty feet of many men, filled their parched mouths with sand. Connect all this with the most exhausting fatigue a fatigue which caused the immediate death of some with the dreadful heat, the excitement, the want of food and sleep, and then it will be easily understood why 596 men sank during the famous flank march, and 2,237 were sent off sick therefrom to Scutari,* as well as that many arrived before the city utterly exhausted, and that many never fairly got over the effects, engaged as they were almost immediately in their arduous trench duties, and thus deprived of any opportunity of repose or recovery.
Those men whom illness or fatigue prevented from keeping up with their comrades were left behind to take their chance, as there was no conveyance to carry them on; and both from this cause, and from the deficiency of opium in the chests to meet the demand, many lives were lost. Thus, then, in the short period of three months in Bulgaria, and the twenty-two days which elapsed between the landing in the Crimea and the camp being " See paper by Dr. William Aitken in Clas. Med. Journal for April, 1857. HISTORY OF THE CRIMHAX WAK. formed betbiv S pol, a very large number of lives were lost, and the seeds of much of that sickness sown which yielded such a rank harvest afterwards.