PREFACE.
The Report of the Royal Commissioners on the sanitary condition of the Indian army was signed on May 19th, 1863. The following short abstract of some of the leading principles in that Report was read at the Edinburgh meeting of the Social Science Association held in October of the same year. It is now reprinted in consequence of many applications made for copies, on the ground that the paper had been found useful for soldiers and others interested in the Indian health question. Since the inquiry of the Royal Commission was begun, several great measures advocated in the Report and urged in the following pages, have been carried out. A Commission of Health has been appointed for each Presidency. And one of these Commissions, that for Bengal, has given public evidence of the zeal with which it has entered on its work. These authorities have been put into communication with the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission at the War Office, which now contains members representing the India Government. And by this time the India Commissions have been put in possession of all the more recent results of sanitary works and measures which have been of use at home.
The military authorities in India have also been actively engaged in improving the soldier's condition. And several of the worst personal causes of ill-health to which the soldier was in former times exposed have been or are being
