The loss of force by death, by sickness in hospital and camp, and by
temporary depression, is not all that the army is subject to. Those who
are laboring under consumption, asthma, epilepsy, insanity, and other
incurable disorders, and those whose constitutions are broken, or
withered and reduced below the standard of military requirement, are
generally, and by some Governments always, discharged. These pass back
to the general community, where they finally die. By this process the
army is continually sifting out its worst lives, and at the same time it
fills their places with healthy recruits. It thus keeps up its average
of health and diminishes its rate of mortality; but the sum and the
rates of sickness and mortality in the community are both thereby
increased.
During the Crimean War, 17.34 per cent, were invalided and sent home
from the British army, and 21 per cent, from the French army, as unable
to do military service. By this means, 11,994[43] British and 65,069[44]
French soldiers were lost to their Governments. The army of the United
States, in the Mexican War, discharged and sent home 12,252 men, or 12
per cent, of the entire number engaged in that war, on account of
disability.
The causes of this exhaustion of personal force are manifold and
various, and so generally present that the number and proportion of
those who are thus hopelessly reduced below the degree of efficient
military usefulness, in the British army, has been determined by
observation, and the Government calculates the rate of the loss which
will happen in this way, at any period of service. Out of 10,000 men
enlisted in their twenty-first year, 718 will be invalided during the
first quinquennial period, or before they pass their twenty-fifth year,
539 in the second, 673 in the third, and 854 in the fourth,--making
2,784, or more than one-quarter of the whole, discharged for disability
or chronic ailment, before they complete their twenty years of military
service and their forty years of life.
It is further to be considered, that, during these twenty years, the
numbers are diminishing by death, and thus the ratio of enfeebled and
invalided is increased. Out of 10,000 soldiers who survive and remain in
the army in each successive quinquennial period, 768 will be invalided
in the first, 680 in the second, 1,023 in the third, and 1,674 in the
fourth. In the first year the ratio is 181, in the fifth 129, in the
tenth 165, in the fifteenth 276, and in the twentieth 411, among 10,000
surviving and remaining.
The depressing and exhaustive force of military life on the soldiers is
gradually accumulative, or the power of resistance gradually wastes,
from the beginning to the end of service. There is an apparent exception
to this law in the fact, that, in the British army, the ratio of those
who were invalided was 181 in 10,000, but diminished, in the second,
third, and fourth years, to 129 in the fifth and sixth, then again rose,
through all the succeeding years, to 411 in the twentieth. The
experience of the British army, in this respect, is corroborated by that
of ours in the Mexican War. From the old standing army 502, from the
additional force recently enlisted 548, and from the volunteers 1,178,
in 10,000 of each, were discharged on account of disability. Some part
of this great difference between the regulars and volunteers is
doubtless due to the well-known fact, that the latter were originally
enlisted, in part at least, for domestic trainings, and not for the
actual service of war, and therefore were examined with less scrutiny,
and included more of the weaker constitutions.
The Sanitary Commission, after inspecting two hundred and seventeen
regiments of the present army of the United States, and comparing the
several corps with each other in respect of health, came to a similar
conclusion. They found that the twenty-four regiments which had the
least sickness had been in service one hundred and forty days on an
average, and the twenty-four regiments which had the most sickness had
been in the field only one hundred and eleven days. The Actuary adds, in
explanation,--"The difference between the sickness of the older and
newer regiments is probably attributable, in part, to the constant
weeding out of the sickly by discharges from the service. The fact is
notorious, that medical inspection of recruits, on enlistment, has been,
as a rule, most imperfectly executed; and the city of Washington is
constantly thronged with invalids awaiting their discharge-papers, who
at the time of their enlistment were physically unfit for service."[45]
In addition to this, it must be remembered, that, although all recruits
are apparently perfect in form and free from disease when they enter the
army, yet there may be differences in constitutional force, which cannot
be detected by the most careful examiners. Some have more and some have
less power of endurance. But the military burden and the work of war are
arranged and determined for the strongest, and, of course, break down
the weak, who retire in disability or sink in death.