A.tad with the duties of the naval surgeon, f the military surgeon are much more dillicult. are widely scattered, do not come so soon under his care when injured, are sul-jeet. d hardships both immediately after Leim: wounded and during r the patients of the surgeon. " The sailor fights at home," while the u i> timate soldier has often much suffering to go through before he is admitted into hospital. The soldier as a patient differs from the civilian in several well-marked points. In some respects he is a better patient, and in many respects he is a much worse one. Some of these points of distinction should always be borne in mind when estimating the success of surgery as practised in the case of the one or the other.
Chosen when young from the mass of the population on account of his physical promise, selected with care during peace with less discrimination during war, the soldier at starting is advantageously contrasted with the majority of the men of his own age. Chosen without any reference to his moral character, he is not uncommonly depraved and profligate in his habits, and has perhaps enlisted in the recklessness which succeeds to debauch, or as a last resource to save him from penury. We have thus not unfrequently two conditions meeting in the young recruit, both of which bear their own fruit in his future history a tendency to indulge in vices which lead to disease, but a state of health in which disease has not been as yet established.
Taken from a domestic life in which he had possibly every liberty as to the disposal of his time, the formation of his habits, and the pursuit of his amusements, he is at once placed under the rigours of a discipline which soon becomes irksome. He enjoys little leisure, but is harassed by his unaccustomed, and, for a time at least, laborious duties. Nostalgia succeeds, and thus the period of acclimatization, as it may be termed, becomes an ordeal so trying as in many instances to implant the germs of disease. The prejudicial effects of this initiation will AS the more sure, if the recruit be launched into the vml of a war camp before his constitution has had time to accommodate it-elf to the new condition of things in which it is for tin- I'uture to exist.
But if the youimsoldi rei this noviciate, then his physical condition, during a time of peace at least, is undoubtedly with his fellow in civil lite. which is well adapted for his use, is provided him regularly. He is systematically His hours of labour and repose are carefully arranged, and he is at all times liberally supplied with fresh air. ism, <>n the other hand, though not subjected to the rough change of existence which the soldier h, undergo, is greatly less regular in his mode of life. He jiiently in close streets and airless dwell; tying with the profits of labour. lie indulges without restraint when he can afford it, and has to submit to privation afterwaiv for the excess.
Ill lier loses many of his advantages over the civilian. cireuiiist;, which predispose to, or generate dimore in his rase than they ( r m civil life. The exposure, the bail and irregular deficienl Bhelter, the oxoessm fatigue, the unnatural exeitement or depression of victory or det'eat. all tend to reduce him as much below as he was formerly above the civilian in the scale of health. He has. amid.-: war," opportunities for li I slow to take advantage, ami his and ifl but ton apt to occasion th.,t iiility ofwh'n-h conceals a constitution weak to resist injury, under an outward appearance of strength and vigour. Thus it is, that as in civil life different trades produce different diseases, so a soldier's life, both in peace and war, begets its own diseases, and secures exemption from others to which civilians are liable.
Morally, as well as physically, the sick soldier differs from the inmate of a civil hospital. If wounded, lie received his injury in the discharge of his duty; if sick, in the fulfilment of praiseworthy service. His "honourable scars " recognise none of those causes referable to misconduct or stupid thoughtlessness, which so frequently make the civilian the inmate of an hospital. He has no fear like the civilian for the future, if incapacitated for further service, as he knows that his misfortune will entitle him to sustenance for the time to come, and that his country will regard him with gratitude. When struck down by sickness, the soldier is, however, thrown more upon himself than the civilian, and this isolation must in his case act prejudicially on his recovery.