o their men fit for duty, were nearly as four to one."[13] In 1748,
dysentery prevailed. "In one regiment of 500 men, 150 were sick at the
end of five weeks; 200 were sick after two months; and at the end of the
campaign, they had in all but thirty who had never been ill." "In
Johnson's regiment sometimes one-half were sick; and in the Scotch
Fusileers 300 were ill at one time."[14]

The British army in Egypt, in 1801, had from 103 to 261 and an average
of 182 sick in each thousand; and the French army had an average of 125
in 1,000, or one-eighth of the whole, on the sick-list.[15]

In July, 1809, the British Government sent another army, of 39,219 men,
to the Netherlands. They were stationed at Walcheren, which was the
principal seat of the sickness and suffering of their predecessors,
sixty or seventy years before. Fever and dysentery attacked this second
army as they had the first, and with a similar virulence and
destructiveness. In two months after landing,

Sept. 13, 7,626 were on the sick-list.
" 19, 8,123 " "
" 21, 8,684 " "
" 23, 9,046 " "

In ninety-seven days 12,867 were sent home sick; and on the 22d of
October there were only 4,000 effective men left fit for duty out of
this army of about 40,000 healthy men, who had left England within less
than four months. On the 1st of February of the next year, there were
11,513 on the sick-list, and 15,570 had been lost or disabled. Between
January 1st and June of the same year, (1810,) 36,500 were admitted to
the hospitals, and 8,000, or more than 20 per cent., died, which is
equal to an annual rate of 48 per cent, mortality.

The British army in Spain and Portugal suffered greatly through the
Peninsular War, from 1808 to 1814. During the whole of that period,
there was a constant average of 209 per 1,000 on the sick-list, and the
proportion was sometimes swelled to 330 per 1,000. Through the forty-one
months ending May 25th, 1814, with an average of 61,511 men, there was
an average of 13,815 in the hospitals, which is 22.5 per cent.; of these
only one-fifteenth, or 1.5 per cent. of the whole army, were laid up on
account of injuries in battle, and 21 per cent. were disabled by
diseases. From these causes 24,930 died, which is an annual average of
7,296, or a rate of 11.8 per cent, mortality.[16]

No better authority can be adduced, for the condition of men engaged in
the actual service of war, than Lord Wellington. On the