European Regiments in India.

355

The death per-centage indicates, in the most impressive manner, the milder form of sickness to which the teetotal soldier was subjected. Now, it is utterly impossible to believe that a regimen which so strengthens the body as to exempt from the usual average of disease, and which conquers it more frequently, should specially expose men to the assaults of fever, dysentery, and diarrhoea.* To prove this, is precisely one of those things which statistics cannot. do-for the figures would only prove that the statistician had somehow tricked himself. No figures' can prove what is contrary to the first principles of nature. Nevertheless, we will take Dr. Barclay's advice, who says: Now look at Table, No. IV.

Here, on the very face of the table, is the most conclusive evidence that it has no comparative value. The items show that the per-centage is obtained from a very small induction; and the last especially proves (if it proves anything) that drunkenness is less fatal than what is called temperate' drinking.

.

Why, we ask, are the statistics of cholera not given? If abstinence from alcoholic stimulants predispose to the other epidemics, by inducing nervous depression,' it must assuredly manifest itself in the same direction of increased sickness and mortality with respect to the most formidable of the type? But Dr. Barclay lays down a principle which applies to fever, dysentery, diarrhoea, and cholera; and his statistics not only prove too much in regard to one, contradict each other in respect to three, but so totally negative the wild hypothesis with relation to the fourth, that the facts are conveniently excluded! In other words, we have detected our philosopher' in the act of cooking his statistics.

Let us suppose a parallel case, to show the kind of trick that has been played off upon the public by Dr. Barclay and the Saturday Review-the latter not only ignoring altogether the table which shows that in all other diseases, save the three, tee

*Nationally,' says Dr. Chambers, whose discarded notions our lecturer is retailing, muscular and mental energy always run in couples. Indeed, it is a question whether the first is not the cause of the second.' If teetotalism improves the nutrition of the muscles, it cannot deteriorate the nerves and brain; nor, therefore, specially predispose to the three typical diseases of fever, dysentery, and cholera.'

totalers

*

totalers have the advantage of 50 per cent. of exemption on the average, but dishonestly representing the proportion to hold of sickness generally! The reader will remember the horrible catastrophe of the Black Hole at Calcutta, into which above 140 persons were thrust, of whom only some dozen survived after a few days, the majority dying of asphyxia before the following morning. We may presume they were not teetotalers, but usually moderationists. Now suppose we were to adduce their experience, and place the results of 96 per cent. mortality to the credit of drinking a little wine-were to say, in fact, that that habit predisposes to some diseases, as asphyxia'-what would Dr. Barclay reply? Would he not ask whether teetotalers would fare much better in the same circumstances? whether a similar trial had been made with them, and had ended in a different way? The answer would be the exposure of the fallacy, since the value of comparative statistics depends entirely upon the similarity of the circumstances under which the facts are produced, and the frequency and uniformity of the results.

Now Dr. Barclay's little table gives the statistics only of a single year, and the results of circumstances peculiar to the teetotal soldiers, from whose experience the figures are obtained. We will give the details in regard to one disease-dysentery, on the authority of Dr. E. A. Parkes, Professor of Hygiene at the Army Medical School, Chatham, and formerly serving with the 84th Regiment.

The regiments serving in the Madras Presidency in 1849, and included in the return, were the 15th Hussars, her Majesty's 25th, 51st, 84th, and 94th regiments, and the 1st Madras Fusiliers. The 84th was, par excellence, the temperance regiment. Owing to the exertions of Lieut.-Col. Willington, Major (now BrigadierGeneral) Russell, C.B., and the late Major Seymour, this regiment (from 1843 up to the date almost of the mutiny) was so temperate that, from 1844 to 1849, no case of delirium tremens occurred. It included at one time above 500 teetotalers, and the rest of the men were very limited drinkers. The 450 teetotalers, of whom Dr. Barclay says, 'one died of fever,' but only one in 4,318 of the temperate soldiers' belonged chiefly to this single regiment. Now in 1849, the year of the statistics, this teetotal regiment was sent to Secunderabad, in the Deccan, which was then, and for years

*Professor Carpenter's letter of correction was rejected.

This shocking event happened in 1756, and was the consequence of a catastrophe brought about through drunkenness. Surajah Dowlah, having besieged Fort William, the English troops, before terms of surrender were mediated, obtained access to the liquor, and were so intoxicated that the enemy took possession without resistance.' 146 officers and men were thrust into a dungeon only 18 feet square, with two small barred windows. Next morning but 23 men were found breathing, most of them raving or insensible. Not a dozen ultimately survived the horrors of the Black Hole.

after,

The Temperance Regiment.

357

after, the very hot-bed of dysentery. Owing to the position and construction of the barracks, and a bad supply of water, no regiment left that station without crowding the churchyard with the dead. Now, to compare the risks of dysentery among the teetotalers serving at Secunderabad with the rest of the force serving in other much healthier stations, is the suppositional fallacy of the Black Hole made actual. Instead of a comparison there is a contrast; instead of an uniformity of continued result there is but one trial under peculiar circumstances.

6

Dr. Lees (vol. i. Appendix, p. 138) exposed this sophism in 1847, in replying to Dr. Glover; and we may borrow his language, and say that Dr. Barclay is guilty of the same fallacy as he would be who, to prove the unhealthiness of an entire town, should go to the narrow lanes, confined courts, and miserable cellars of the very scum and outcasts of the community, and thence draw his inference as to the healthiness of all the rest. The best proof would be a trial of the principle, not among the same class merely, but the same men; and such a trial is detailed in reference to the 84th Regiment in the "Medical Review" for 1847.' In that year it marched to Secunderabad (450 miles); and, although the road is proverbial for cholera, and passes through several unhealthy and marshy districts, the men were free from sickness to an extent absolutely unprecedented in our marches in India. They had no cholera and no fever, and lost only two men from dysentery, both old chronic cases. The officers were surprised to find that the men marched infinitely better than they had ever before known, and were unusually cheerful.' Dr. Lees adds the testimony of Dr. Ramsey Sladen, Physician-General of Madras, who says: "I have always been most temperate, and have enjoyed an uncommon share of health; but I find that I can go through bodily and mental exertion much better when I abstain altogether from alcoholic or fermented liquors.'

Had Dr. Barclay desired to discover the truth, he would carefully have sought for proper conditions of comparison, and at once have suspected the character of those which even seemed to a superficial view to prove that drunkenness was better than absti nence as a prophylactic against epidemics. The losses of the 84th Regiment should have been compared with the losses of other regiments at the same place and under similar circumstances.

Now the annual average mortality at Secunderabad was for many years more than 70 per 1,000. Some slight improvements in the barracks in 1837-1838 were of little use, for subsequently several regiments were literally more than decimated by dysentery. The 84th Regiment served here during part of 1847, and in 1848 and 1849. In the Annual Report up to the 31st.

March,

March, 1849, they had lost, out of a strength of 1,068, only 24 men from all causes; of these 10 only were from dysentery. The annual mortality was little over 22 per 1,000, instead of 70 per 1,000, which was the average. For 1849 the returns do not extend later than the end of September; but in the quarter ending 30th September, the period of all the great dysenteric outbursts, the admissions from dysentery were 68 out of a strength of 1,044, the deaths only 6.

There is here, then, the clearest evidence that, although the 84th Regiment did not escape the terrible influence which for so many years assailed the troops at Secunderabad, it yet suffered from these influences in an inconsiderable degree; and thus the entire facts support the view that teetotalism protects against the attacks, as well as against the severity, of epidemics. We may say of Dr. Barclay, in conclusion, that there is nothing more fallacious than his facts, unless it be his figures. He can not only make facts on paper, but can stoutly deny them. We have had in our hand this day a bottle of virgin wine-pure grapejuice, as thin as is the juice in the grape itself-which has been bottled three years. It would keep three centuries as well as three years. Dr. Barclay, however, like the French savan, boldly declares that it is so much the worse for our fact'! At p. 42, 'to make unfermented wine, however desirable,' he asserts to be quite impossible, except by boiling down to the consistence of a syrup.' How stubborn the wine must be to continue to exist in the face of this proclaimed impossibility! How absurd on the part of Mr. F. Wright to advertise it at 28s. per dozen! But mark the Doctor's reason. For wherever sugar, water, and air meet, they must ferment.' Really we did not know this. We had fancied that a ferment' was essential to fermentation.

A

But enough for the present-we shall return to the discussion. The work of Dr. Brinton, and the interesting controversy which has been going on for some months in the medical journals, we reserve for notice in our next issue. It is sufficient to indicate here that the old ground of alcohol being food is abandoned as entirely untenable, after the conclusive experiments of Professors Lallemand and Perrin, and of Dr. Edward Smith.*

* The reader, in referring to an article in the preceding volume (p. 34), will observe that we spoke of the chromic acid test as a discovery of Lallemand's, for so it would appear to have been to him, judging from his language. However, there can be no doubt that Rudolf Masing first used it. On the next page a printer's error requires correction. 1 French pint,' should be 17 pint' (i. e. nearly a quart).

We may add here, that the book entitled Ebrietatis Encomium,' of which we gave so full an analysis (p. 103), was a reprint of 1812; the original bearing date, London, 1723,' in 12mo., with frontispiece.

ART.

IT

Mr. Bates, the Architect.

ART. VI.-MR. BATES, THE ARCHITECT.

359

T was a dull, cold October afternoon; twilight was coming on, accompanied by small drizzling rain. In the drawing-room of a tolerably large house in one of the suburbs of the metropolis sat a lady, restless, and apparently uneasy in mind. Her eldest child, a little girl of some ten or cleven years of age, sat on a low stool near the glowing fire, stitching away at a piece of white work.

Mrs. Bates was not still for five minutes together. She would go to the window and look out in the gathering mist, as if expecting some one; then, heaving a sigh, would return to her seat, only to start up again to the window in a minute or two, to look out as before.

Little Mary was not surprised to see her mother so agitated; of late it had been no uncommon thing to see her so, and the child half divined the reason of it. 'Isn't papa very late this evening, mamma ?' she said.

'He is, dear, especially for Saturday. I can't imagine what detains him.'

Saturday evening was looked forward to most eagerly by the younger members of the family, for the sole reason that on that evening they were allowed to take tea in the drawing-room with their parents. On other days, Mr. and Mrs. Bates dined alone at the tea hour, in consequence of Mr. Bates being engaged the whole day in business in the City. On Saturdays, his office was closed at midday, and accordingly the home arrangements respecting meal-times were altered, to the great satisfaction of the aforesaid 'younger members.'

The little timepiece on its marble bracket rattled out the hour of six. Papa is late,' said Mrs. Bates, for nearly the twentieth time; then, pausing in her march to the window, exclaimed, "Hark! what can those children be doing? Turning the house upside down, I should think. Mary, just run up and tell Ann I will come and- or, never mind, I will go myself.' And as she ascended the stairs, peals of laughter and the clatter of childish feet scampering madly about made her brow grow dark. Mrs. Bates was not a good woman in the true acceptation of the term, and her temper being already ruffled by her husband's non-appearance at the proper time, she did not feel in a mood to deal leniently with offenders. Moreover, the scene that was presented to her as she opened the nursery door was in no wise calculated to soothe her perturbed feelings. There were four children there, and a young, careless, rosy-faced nursemaid 'fresh from the country.

Little Jessie, the eldest of the four, was seated on a high stool,