ABSTRACT
We have received a copy of a valuable paper recently read before the Institute of Actuaries by Messrs. Schooling and Rusher, actuary and assistant actuary respectively of the Prudential Assurance Company, Limited, on the subject of the mortality experience of the imperial forces during the war in South Africa, October 11, 1899, to May 31, 1902. 1 Certain facts are brought out clearly by the authors, which may be briefly summarized as follows: There were twenty-five men engaged in the war to one officer. Ten men were killed by wounds for one officer, and thirty-eight men died from other causes for every one officer. The causes to which this is due are, firstly, that in action the officers were specially singled out by the enemy, and the mortality among the officers from wounds decreased when they discarded badges of rank and other marks which distinguished them from the rank and file. In the second place, the officers were drawn from a section of the community whose power of resisting disease is greater than that from which we obtain the non-commissioned officers and men. Again, it may also be that the officers recognised more thoroughly than the men the value of the sanitary precautions as regards drinking-water, etc., which were from time to time impressed upon the army in the field. Perhaps, also, the care in hospital bestowed upon the officers exceeded that given to the men, though there are very few facts to warrant such an inference. As the authors remark, the “death-rates from other causes uniformly tended to rise during December and January. This is the height of the South African summer, a season which is generally considered by the medical profession as productive of excessive mortality from enteric fever.” 2 In June, the period of mid-winter in South Africa, there is an increase in mortality due to intestinal catarrh, 3 which Dr. Washbourn 4 states to originate in chills, which in England would cause nasal catarrh. 5
