The chief cause of the high mortality in the prison-camps was the fact that such large numbers of men, men whose vitality had been reduced by privations and hardships, were congregated in places which had not been properly prepared to receive them. The unfortunate prisoners often reached the place of detention in a pitiable condition—exhausted and half naked. Furthermore, they were men who had no appreciation of the order that must be observed, when large numbers of people are congregated in one place, in attending to the daily requirements of nature, nor were they willing to be taught. The result was that the ground became filthy; the open spaces in front of the tents were often used in place of the latrines; the contents of slop-jars were simply thrown out in front of the doors, instead of being emptied into receptacles that were deposited here and there for that purpose. The mothers had no idea of nursing, and were unwilling to take medical advice; in order to avoid having to send their children to the hospital, they kept secret the fact that they were sick, thus giving measles, diphtheria, &c., the best possible chance to spread. We read in an English report:[310] A large share of the high death-rate in them is ascribable to the condition in which the women and children arrive. Often they have been half-starved and are broken down in health. It cannot be wondered at that under these circumstances measles and other diseases are inordinately fatal. The dirty personal habits of the Boers, their use of improper and often disgusting remedies, and their ignorant errors of dietetics in regard to young children, have rendered it extremely difficult to secure favourable results in the treatment of cases of sickness among the Boer children. There appears to be no doubt, as indicated in our previous special article, that the measles which has been prevalent has been of a specially malignant type. Its malignancy has doubtless been intensified by the dirty condition of the Boer children, and by the overcrowding that has been permitted in the camps, as well as by the previous bad health of these children. The present reports afford abundant evidence confirmatory of the conclusion at which we had previously arrived, that dysentery, diarrhoea, and enteric fever in a large proportion of the camps have been prevalent as well as measles. And in another report we read:[311]