labour done by overwork, diminishes in the long
run a man's ordinary working power.

Let it not be supposed that there is
culpable neglect of the health of seamen in the
Royal Navy. So far is this from being the case,
that the navy, with the problem how to keep in
health a small community locked for months
together within narrow space, was really
the first school of sanitary science. Between
the beginning and the end of the continental
war, closed by the battle of Waterloo, so much
had been done, that, by reason of improved
health and chance of life in their crews, two ships,
in 1815, were capable of more service than
three of the same rate had been three dozen
years earlier. But even in that improved state
of things the yearly death-rate, during the last
three years of the war, was one man in thirty.
In those earlier days, when men seized by the
press-gang, without much regard for bodily
condition, were crammed into filthy receiving-
vessels, where many perished of fever even before
they went on board a man-of-war; when in the
men-of-war the holds were noisome as the jails
of the same day, and "the air used to become
so contaminated," wrote Sir Gilbert Blane, a
wise doctor, who knew what he had seen, "as
in innumerable instances to produce instantaneous
and irremediable suffocation;" when bad
provisions were served out, and, lemon-juice not
having come into use, crews were desolated
year after year by scurvy; in those earlier days
nearly a twelfth part of the whole force of men
afloat, must have died every year; and more than
a sixth part must have been every year cancelled
by death and sickness. Yet when the mortality
was so great, twenty years before the diet of
the navy was improved, and lemon-juice was
served out as a protection against scurvy, Captain
Cook had sailed round the world, and had lived,
with a hundred and twelve men, for three years
in a ship well-cleaned, ventilated, and
provisioned, bringing all the men home, except five,
of whom four were lost by accidents, one only
by disease. At the beginning of this century,
too, when the frightful mortality among
convicts sent to Botany Bay, attracted attention,
Sir Gilbert Blane and Count Rumford fitted up
an old East Indiaman, the Glatton, for
conveyance of four hundred convicts. Of these,
only seven died, five men and two women, of
old-standing diseases which they had before
they sailed; and the crew of a hundred and
seventy, after a twelvemonth's absence, during
which the vessel had been round the world,
came back without loss of a single man. How
was that result achieved? Especially by
providing for the ventilation between decks. There
were a series of tubes passing up from where
the convicts slept, into the open air; there was
a narrow opening amidships, along the whole
length of the upper deck, protected by a
penthouse covering raised a few inches above it, to
keep out weather. These were always open,
and there were also scuttles at the side, to open
as weather permitted. What could be done
was thus demonstrated, a dozen years before the
end of the great, continental war: at which time,
remarkable as had been the progress made upon
the strength of sanitary experience, Sir Gilbert
Blane still objected that the mortality of the
navy from all causes—about thirty-three per
thousand—was, as it ought not to be, double
the then rate among persons of the same ages
in civil life.

The study of health in the navy has for some
years past been aided by the issue of very excellent
statistical returns. We find, of course,
that the sick rate varies greatly in our fleet,
according to the stations at which ships are
employed. It is (or was when last heard of) highest
on the East Indian and China station, where, for
the last three years of which the health reports
are published, there was a daily average sick
list of ninety-three men in the thousand. The
sick-rate is lowest on the Australian station,
where it is only half that on the coasts of
India and China. Next in degree in sickliness
is—throughout we say is, referring only to the
last reports in question—the body of ships
engaged in irregular duty on various stations, which
are by the rate of only one man in a thousand
less healthy than the ships on the West Coast
of Africa. On that dreaded coast, although
the sick-rate is high—sixty-eight in a thousand
—it does not approach the ninety-three in a
thousand of India and China. The sick-rate at
the other stations ranges from fifty-nine to fifty
in a thousand, and they are beginning with
that of fifty-nine and rising in average healthiness
to that of fifty, the Cape of Good Hope, North
America, and the West Indies, the Brazilian,
the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Home fleet—
the Home service being exceeded in healthiness
only by the Australian.

The death-rate at the several stations does
not hold the same proportion to the sickness.
There is not only more sickness, but more fatal
sickness, in the East Indian and China service,
where the mortality is as high as forty-seven
or eight in a thousand; and the Brazilian
fleet, though it stands only fifth in the order
of sickliness, ranks—with a wide interval—
second in the average of deaths—five-and-
twenty out of every thousand men. Even
the North American and West Indian station,
with a death-rate of twenty-four in a thousand,
is worse in this respect than the West African,
which has so traditionally bad a name. The
use of quinine, and avoidance of prolonged boat
service at the mouth of rivers, have reduced the
death-rate in our ships on the West African
station to twenty or twenty-one per thousand.
The irregular service, which stood very high
for sickliness, has a comparative low death-rate,
about twelve. In the home fleet it is ten and
a fraction; in the Australian, a fraction under
ten; in the Pacific, lowest of all, between
eight and nine. Two of the three years 'fifty-
six, 'seven, and 'eight (the last three of which
returns are published), were years of war for
the West Indian fleet; and although the
increased death-rate in them is due infinitely
more to disease than to casualty of battle, yet