It is a melancholy fact, attested by the distinguished Marshal Saxe, that
the military men of modern times are far less informed than the great
generals of antiquity in the profound knowledge of public hygiene, and
especially of that which relates to the economy of armies. We can admire,
but hardly improve, the physical education imposed upon the volunteers of
Sparta and the legionaries of Rome; and we have not surpassed their
scientific, yet rude alimentation, by which they marched over immense
distances with rapidity, and preserved their vigor and morale. From the
extant documents of the ancients, from Xenophon or Vegetius, it is shown
that their acquaintance with whatever related to clothing, encampment,
food, the graduation of exercises, and the employ of forces, was of the
highest character.
The effects of high and low lands, of good and bad water, on the diseases,
energy, character, and intellect of man, have been sketched in a masterly
manner by Hippocrates.
The exposure of a few hours to malignant influences may impair the
strength of an army to such a degree as to thwart the most skilful plans,
the wisest combinations for vigorous campaigns, as, for instance, the
Walcheren expedition of the English, the Neapolitan campaign of France,
when her army was reduced from twenty-eight thousand to four thousand
effective men, in one hundred hours, from an injudicious encampment at
Baie, or when Orloff lost his army in Paros, or, still later, the disaster
to the splendid division of the French army under Espinasse, in the fatal
Dobrutscha.
Armies have been lost, the fate of empires decided, by the violation or
neglect of the simple rules of hygiene; and all through the blood-stained
pages of military history do we observe examples, from the time when
Scipio lost the battle of Trebbia, or when Bajazet threw away his vast
empire on the plains of Angora, down to Kunersdorf, when the impetuosity
of Frederick the Great would not allow rest to his men or horses.