CHAITER III. The campaign in Bulgaria, and its effects on the subsequent health of the troops diseases which appeared there, and during the flank march, as well as afterwards in the camp before Sebastopol. the previous chapters 1 have described the position pied by army before Sebastopol, as well tfl condition in regard to fond, clothing, and duty. To avoid contusion, I have hitherto omitted to trac-e the incidents ot' the earlier part f the war, as they bore on icalth of the troops; and I have not yet mentioned the diseases which prevailed at different seasons in OUT camp. 1'efoiv enterm-- on the subject proper to this volume. 1 must, however, advert to these points, though fly; as their effects on the constitutions of the men. and on their recovery from wounds and injuries.;.oth irreat and
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The country in which our army lay was of the most beautiful description to the eye, but of the most dangerous character to the health. The long, shallow lakes, exuberant, low-lying woods, thick-tangled wild flowers, and verdant grass, presented to the eye of all but the initiated one of the most charming stations for an inactive army. But to those who judged of encampments by other tests than those of natural beauty, all these charms were but as the fair painting on the cheek of death. Every element of its physical character was bad. Large surfaces of shallow water, surrounded by level, spongy lands, indented with little hollows, dried and cracked by the recession and evaporation of the winter floods; low brushwood, rank in vegetation; bounding uplands these, with a high temperature, and a deficiency of potable water, supplied nearly all the possible combinations of physical When these features failed to warn, the ominous designation of " the valley of death," which the natives gave to part of the "The experience of all ages has proved that the neighbourhood of marshes, grounds subject to be overflowed by large rivers, surrounded l>y foul, stagnating water, or low places covered with wood, are most injurious to health, and the noxious effluvia arising from these situations are augmented in proportion to the heat of the climate, or the season of the year." Sir George Outlines, p.
50. Till: TA MI'AKIN IN BULGARIA. C>1. eciuhl not prevent the " experimentum crucis ". and so our splendid army was placed within the vortex of these baneful agencies, and its fate DOl long left in dmil>t. The crowded I mry ing-place (Id war" formed part of the occupied by the British, and thus friend foe li'- mouldering in the same During the of the year when our army occupied J mlii-aria. the two most prominent climatic a hot sun in the daytime (90 to and cold, The heavy mists which rose from the.ling hikes in the valley, spread their heavy mantle the camp at night, and introduced into the bodies of the unconscious sleepers the seeds of future di.ill.
That many who escaped the immediate such a residence, then imbibed a p.ismi which itself in their behaviour under injury, lew will question, who watched the phases of disease;he subsequent periods of the war. rationing of the troops, too, when in Bui bad and irregular, the tents thin and permeable, and an ample supply of deleterious spirit and adulter. at hand. These all lent their aid in predisposing to the outbreak of disease. thy which these causes, and, above all, the want of employment, engendered, all tended in the same. s<> that when cholera broke out in duly, a M could hardly be imagined. The power which terror has in propagating this disease, recehed many mo<t striking exemplifications at this time.
The l-'iviich and Ti; red most. horrors.f their the SUKJKUY OF Tin: rum KAN WAR. caccio. Half of the army of Espinasse, in the Dobrutscha, disappeared as by a whirlwind, and the panic which seized the survivors has been described to me as having been beyond belief. This cholera was the great scourge which devastated our camp; but typhus, its close companion, diarrhoea, and dysentery, all claimed their tithe of men. The breaking-up of the large encampments failed to rid us of the enemy, which clung to our army with a pertinacity and malignancy that nothing could overcome. Thus, then, in less than three months we find that 897 died from cholera, and 75 from dysentery and diarrhoea. The Light Division, the Guards, some of the heavy dragoon regiments, and the commissariat department, appear to have been the heaviest losers.