With regard to the mortality at hospitals, the comparison is greatly in favour of those in England. This is owing to the greater regularity, and the better accommodation and diet, which an hospital at home admits of, as well as to the difference of climate. It has also been mentioned, that, on most occasions, the hospitals I attended abroad were so limited as to contain only the worst cases, in consequence of which there would of course be a greater proportional mortality than in the great hospitals of England. The following is an account of the whole loss of lives from disease, and by the enemy[32], in three years and three months, in the fleets and hospitals with which I was connected: Died of disease[33] 3200 Killed in battle 648 Died of wounds 500 ---- Total[34] 4348 PART II. OF THE CAUSES OF SICKNESS IN FLEETS, AND THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. INTRODUCTION. In the year 1780 I printed a small treatise for the use of the fleet, containing general rules for the prevention of sickness; and this part of the work is chiefly taken from it. My own opportunities of experience, as exhibited in the preceding Part, have been sufficiently extensive to suggest many observations on this subject; but as my object is utility, rather than the praise of originality, I shall not confine myself to these. Great part of what is to be advanced is taken from books[35] and conversation, as well as my own experience, my design being to exhibit a concise view of all the discoveries on this subject that have come to my knowledge. I have assumed nothing, however, from mere report or testimony, having had opportunities, from my own observations, of verifying or disproving the assertions of others. More may be done towards the preservation of the health and lives of seamen than is commonly imagined; and it is a matter not only of humanity and duty, but of interest and policy. Towards the forming of a seaman a sort of education is necessary, consisting in an habitual practice in the exercise of his profession from an early period of life; so that if our stock of mariners should come to be exhausted or diminished, this would be a loss that could not be repaired by the most flourishing state of the public finances; for money would avail nothing to the public defence without a sufficient number of able and healthy men, which are the real resources of a state, and the true sinews of war. In this view, as well as from the peculiar dependence of Britain on her navy, this order of men is truly inestimable; and even considering men merely as a commodity, it could be made evident, in an œconomical and political view, independent of moral considerations, that the lives and health of men might be preserved at much less expence and trouble than what are necessary to repair the ravages of disease.