14th of
November, 1809, he wrote from his army in Spain to Lord Liverpool, then
at the head of the British Government,--"In all times and places the
sick-list of the army amounts to ten per cent of all."[17] He seemed to
consider this the lowest attainable rate of sickness, and he hoped to be
able to reduce that of his own army to it: this is more than five times
as great as the rate of sickness among male civilians of the army-ages.
The sickness in Lord Wellington's army, at the moment of writing this
despatch, was fifteen per cent., or seven and a half times as great as
that at home.

In the same Peninsular War, there was of the sick in the French army a
constant average of 136 per 1,000 in Spain, and 146 per 1,000 in
Portugal. Mr. Edmonds says, that, just before the Battle of Talavera,
the French army consisted of 275,000 men, of whom 61,000, or 22.2 per
cent., were sick.[18] Lord Wellington wrote, Sept. 19, 1809, that the
French army of 225,000 men had 30,000 to 40,000 sick, which is 13.3 to
17.7 per cent. The French army in Portugal had at one time 64 per 1,000,
and at another 235 per 1,000, and an average of 146 per 1,000, in the
hospitals through the war.

The British army that fought the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, had an
average of 60,992 men, through the campaign of four months, June to
September; of these, there was an average of 7,909, or 12.9 per cent.,
in the hospitals.[19]

The British legion that went to Spain in 1836 consisted of 7,000 men. Of
these, 5,000, or 71 per cent., were admitted into the hospitals in three
and a half months, and 1,223 died in six months. This is equal to an
annual rate of almost two and a half, 2.44, attacks for each man, and of
34.9 per cent. mortality.[20]

"Of 115,000 Russians who invaded Turkey in 1828 and 1829, only 10,000 or
15,000 ever repassed the Pruth. The rest died there of intermittent
fevers, dysenteries, and plague." "From May, 1828, to February, 1829,
210,108 patients were admitted into the general and regimental
hospitals." "In October, 1828, 20,000 entered the general hospitals."
"The sickness was very fatal." "More than a quarter of the
fever-patients died." "5,509 entered the hospitals, and of these, 3,959
died in August, 1829, and only 614 ultimately recovered." "At Brailow
the plague attacked 1,200 and destroyed 774." "Dysentery was equally
fatal." "In the march across the Balkan, 1,000 men died of diarrhoea,
fever, and scurvy." "In Bulgaria, during J