The catalogue of military diseases is never extensive. If his peculiar way of life exposes the soldier more to some distempers, it entirely exempts him from many others. In an Indian army the diseases are even fewer than in any other; at the same time, that the practice of medicine is more simple. I am of opinion, that in India the practitioner goes on surer ground than in Europe, partly for the above reason, and partly from the causes of disease being less varied in that country. Though the diseases which occurred in the Indian army, when in Egypt, were not numerous, yet some of them were highly important, and on our arrival in Egypt were new to every one of the medical gentlemen, excepting Mr Bellars, of the 86th regiment, who had treated a few cases of the plague, which occurred in a detachment of that regiment acting with the Vizier’s army, and had himself suffered from the ophthalmia of Egypt. I propose to include every thing that I have to offer on this part under two heads. Under the first, I shall notice two diseases which may be termed the endemics of Egypt, viz. the plague and the ophthalmia of that country. Under the second, the other diseases which prevailed will be noticed. They are mostly tropical diseases; and with them the reader will not be long detained. OF THE PLAGUE. I begin with the plague; a disease of which accounts have been handed down to us from the earliest ages of history or of physic. The consideration of it is important, not only on account of its frequent and fatal occurrence, but, as being, perhaps, the most formidable disease that the art of physic has to encounter. On this subject, however, much will not be expected from me. Of no disease have we a more clear, accurate, and complete, history than of this, in Dr Russel’s work on the plague. In Egypt, we often had recourse to this work, and we readily acknowledge our obligations to the venerable and learned author. Though since the time that Dr Russel gave his ample history of the plague in Syria, we have had several accounts of this disease as it appeared in other countries; yet much has not been added to our stock of information, and little of improvement has been made in the practice. The proper and well-timed use of mercury, and, perhaps still more, the application of the newly-discovered remedies analogous in their effects to the calces of that mineral, hold out a prospect of success the most encouraging. In Europe, but more particularly in Britain, much of the dread, and much of the real danger, that attended the most fatal diseases in this country are now done away, by the late improvements in medicine, and in chemistry.