This request may have been so that the lash fell upon skin already damaged by flogging, and so numbed to the pain, rather than the skin on the back of his neck. Colonel Whyte and the regimental surgeon Dr James Law Warren were present throughout. Warren did not intervene to check on White at any point during the punishment. At one point White asked for a drink of water, which was given. At least one corporal and one private fainted while witnessing the punishment, though one witness at the coroner's court recounted that six men fainted. By the end of the punishment White had suffered significant blood loss, which soaked his trousers; this occurred despite regulations stating that flogging was not intended to break the skin. His shirt, doused in water, was placed over his back and he was covered with his overcoat and taken to the barracks hospital. Whyte announced to the regiment that he was sorry such a "brutish exhibition" as White's offence should be committed in the regiment and he was determined to stop such conduct. Treatment and death White whistled on his entry into the hospital, where the blood was sponged from his still-bleeding back by an orderly and another patient. White was not seen by a doctor for another 90 minutes when Warren, accompanied by Whyte, visited. Neither officer spoke with White or examined his back. Warren returned at 10pm to examine White's back which was wounded in an area around in height and in width between his shoulder blades. White's pulse was not taken on the first day. White's back was washed with lukewarm water and treated with a cetaceous ointment and basic lead acetate. Warren placed him on a restricted diet of of potatoes and of bread per day until 9 July when he was placed on a "half diet" of of bread, of meat, of soup and of tea. White could not eat his full allowance after 5 July, eating, for example, just one potato on 6 July. During his time in hospital White complained that he had not been in a fit state to be flogged owing to an existing chest complaint. The skin on White's back healed quickly though from early July his condition deteriorated. White complained of pain in his right side and by 6 July was bed-ridden. On 9 July White's back and chest, which had broken out