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The Reports of the Surgeon-General of the Army and the Surgeon-General of the Navy for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1886, have just come to hand. The Army Report is a rather miserable looking little pamphlet, without an index, while the Navy Report, though but little larger, is at least substantially and attractively bound, and has an index.
The Army report shows that the last was a year of exceptional freedom from disease, the actual number of admissions to sick report being 3,839 less than for the preceding year, though the troops on the South-west frontier have had unusual hardships. The ratio of cases of sickness to mean strength of command was considerably lower also than for the previous year. The death-rate, too, fell to a lower rate than at any time within the history of the Army Medical Department. Of interest is the influence of length of service