454
A
SEQUEL
TO
THE
ESSAY
situated to leeward of a low wet flat ; the other oil the side of a firm dry elevated rock.
Eleven of those at-
tached to the lower general hospital were attacked with fever, whilst only two of those at the upper, who had the additional fatigue of frequently going to the lower hospital for extras ; the purveyor’s store being then at a greater distance.”
“ A considerable mortality prevailed amongst the women and children of the Queen’s regiment, such as to awaken the attention and call for the interposition and advice of Dr. Fergusson, Inspector of Hospitals, ever vigilant in watching the health of the army entrusted to his care, relative to a mistaken indulgence granted to that class of people in the corps. The married families were allowed to lie out of barracks in miserable wooden huts, resting on the very ground ; many of them not w ater-proof, and all defective of jealousies, (“Venetian blinds.”)
The rent of these
wretched habitations was so great, that two or three families were not unfrequently obliged to join, to pay for one; so that they were extremely crowded.”– –“ Whole families were swept off by the fever ; assording a plausible argument to the shallow contagionist for the generative cause of the disease, without looking into the real source.
But
strange to say, this contagion ceased immediately on the women being ordered into barracks, where a little more regularity and cleanliness were imposed upon them ; the