Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/436

 392 Till'; WINTER TKOUBLES. CHAP, days — days ending on the 30th of June 1855 — ' to scarce more than 2 (^^) — a rate so low as to be touching the very goal for which sanguine toilers were striving, because brought down to a level with the rate of mortality in our military hos- pitals at home.(^^) And now, passing from the mortality in our Bosphorus hospitals to that of our Eastern hos- pitals generally, I may say that the deaths were, for January 1855, 3168; for February, 2523; for March, 1409; for April, 582 ; for May, 594 ; and for June, 1042 ; {^^) but besides, if consent- ing once more to glance beyond the bounds of this History, I may say that from the end of June 1855 to the time, twelve months later, when our army bade farewell to Crim Tartary, the mortality invading our hospitals grew less and less almost constantly, and that the monthly return which for January 1855 had recorded 3168 deaths, showed for June, in the following year, deaths numbering only six.(^^) Thoughts But whilst dwelling on those happy changes that mem- ... .. i-, oiy ought which raised our hospital management to an not to slum. i • i n it • i almost unknown heiglit of excellence, it less becomes our people to harbour a sense of com- placency, than to think of the lives — the lost lives — that timely care might have saved. A sustained, though painful remembrance of those trials, those wants under which our troops suf- fered and died, would perhaps afford some ground for hoping that, in wars yet to come, the dire penalties of State incapacity may not again have to be borne.