Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/230

 186 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP. VI1[. iVaturc of the com- pl'iints un- der ■which our array was suller- ing. Removal of the sick. Tlicir suf- ferings on board the tick-trans- ports which Lord Eaglan allowed it to appear that his power of enduring care was undergoing a strain. The huge numljer of troops in our sick-lists comprised soldiers wounded in action, and those, too, who were victims to cholera, and other ills, hardly avertible by even the most careful War Ministry ; but it is nevertheless very certain that the bulk of our hospital inmates were men stricken down by those maladies which Science traces to hardships — that is, to cold, and to wet, and to excessive fatigue, and to want of the kinds of food necessary for maintaining health and strength when camping out on a hill-top throughout a Crim-Tartary winter.(^^) Of the maladies causing 48,742 admissions into hospi- tal, nearly three-fourths were of the kind which Science ranks as ' Zymotic,' and declares to be, in some sense, ' preventable.' When our sick were carried down for embark- ation to the port of Balaclava, they too often endured long delays and consequent sufferings, which, however, perhaps in most instances, could be traced to want of ' hands ' and want of space — in short, to a sort of adversity which may fairly be called ' stress of war.' But when once they had been brought on l;oard ship, they not only there found a home secure against hostile disturbance, but were also so circumstanced as to be more directly than before in charge of our Home Government. Yet, unhappily, with these seeming advantages, they fared worse than ever. No adequate provision had been made for remov- ing them in vessels which were either sudiciently