Medical Sketches of the Expedition to Egypt, from India — John Shaqi
Medical Sketches of the Expedition to Egypt, from IndiaMcGrigor, James, Sir
History
Medical Sketches of the Expedition to Egypt, from India
McGrigor, James, Sir
Great Britain. Army -- Sanitary affairs; Medicine, Military
The India government has ever been peculiarly anxious about every thing
that related to the health of their troops, zealous in collecting any
fact and circumstance touching the causes of diseases or the means of
obviating them, and most liberal in every thing that regarded the health
of the sick soldier.
During an uncommonly long voyage, in a march over extensive deserts, and
in a country and climate described as the most inimical to the human
race, the Indian army enjoyed a considerable degree of health, and
suffered but a small mortality. The causes of this I shall attempt to
develope: the investigation may be useful.
The prevention of disease is usually the province, and is mostly in the
power, of the military officer; the cure lies with the medical: in the
expedition to Egypt very much was done by both.
The medical officers deserve my grateful thanks, and I readily
acknowledge my obligations to them. For every assistance in their power,
I am under not fewer obligations to the military officers. In no army,
perhaps, was the health of every soldier in it more the care of every
officer, from the general downwards, than in the Indian army.
It would be doing violence to my feelings not to mention how much my duty
was abridged by having such a commander-in-chief as General Baird. His
military abilities are well known. His extreme attention to every thing
which regarded the health and comfort of the soldier, I must mention, was
a principal cause of the great degree of health enjoyed by the army.
To Brigadier-General Beresford the army owes very much likewise. It
is not my business to say how much all were indebted to the man, who,
under circumstances the most discouraging, led the advance over the
desert. In my official capacity I cannot but notice how much the British
army, as well as that from India, were indebted to him, as President
of the Board of Health, and as Commandant of Alexandria. The excellent
police established by him gave security to the army as well as to the
inhabitants; and, more than any other circumstance, tended to the
exclusion of the plague from Alexandria.
The route which we took from India to Egypt is remarkable for having been
that by which, in the earliest ages, the commerce of Asia, its spices,
its gums, its perfumes, and all the luxuries of the East, were conveyed
to Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Rome, Marseilles, and in a word to all the
coasts of the Mediterranean, from Egypt, a country rendered extremely
interesting by various recollections.—The situation of the army from
India has accordingly excited no common share of interest.
It penetrated Egypt by a route over the desert of Thebes, a route
unattempted by any army for perhaps two or three thousand years.
Independently of late circumstances, Egypt and Arabia peculiarly interest
every man of science, and more particularly medical men, from the
occurrence of the plague, and the ophthalmia, or the disorder of the
eyes, in Egypt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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