Genre:

Serial, Notes, Satire

Subjects:

War, Disease, Medical Treatment, Sanitation, Public Health, Nutrition, Government

    Subtitled 'How Her Majesty's Commissariat were employed in the Island of Routine', satirises in Rabelasian style, the incompetence of the Commissariat in providing adequate supplies for the troops in the Crimea. The activities of the commissariat include purifying water with mud, cleansing sick rooms without chloride of lime, giving the sick 'no medicine', keeping feet warm 'by selling boots without soles', making 'all things out of nothing, and nothing out of all things', and worshipping 'a huge beast named Routine'.