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I happened to find in the surgeon-general's library a rare book: Moricheau
Beaupre, A Treatise on the Effects and Properties of Cold, with a Sketch,
Historical and Medical, of the Russian Campaign. Translated by John
Clendining, with appendix, xviii, 375 pp. 8vo., Edinburgh, Maclachnan and
Stewart, 1826.
This most valuable book is not mentioned in any of the numerous
publications on the medical history of the Russian campaign of Napoleon
which I examined, and I shall now give an extract of what Beaupre writes on
the Effects of Cold in General:
Distant expeditions, immaterial whether in cold or warm countries, with
extremes of temperature, are always disadvantageous and must cause great
sacrifice of life, not only on account of the untried influence of extreme
temperatures on individuals born in other climates, but also on account of
the fatigues inseparable from traversing long distances, of an irregular
life, of a multiplicity of events and circumstances impossible to foresee,
or which at least had not been foreseen, and which operate very
unfavorably, morally and physically, on military persons. The expedition of
the French army into Russia offers a sad proof of this truth, but history
has recorded similar experiences. The army of Alexander the Great suffered
frightfully from cold on two occasions: first, when that ambitious
conqueror involved himself amid snows, in savage and barbarous regions of
northern Asia before reaching the Caucasus; the second time, when, after
having crossed these mountains, he passed the Tanais to subdue the
Scythians, and the soldiers were oppressed with thirst, hunger, fatigue,
and despair, so that a great number died on the road, or lost their feet
from congelation; the cold seizing them, it benumbed their hands, and they
fell at full length on the snow to rise no more.
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