termined 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