-NRLF 
 
 170 flDM 
 
IV Jy OF THE 
 
 " f ttwewtg <rf 
 
 Name of Book and Volume, 
 
 Received... ..187 
 
 University of California. 
 
 THE MEDICAL LIBRARY 
 
 V. -i . i '( > r i; r; i : A i ' i >. M . i > . 
 
 Of San Frnncisco. 
 
 PEESEFTED BY MES. AND MISS FOUEGEAUD, 
 //:/;/, r i KY. /.V;.T. 
 
 BiOLOGY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
HINTS 
 
 HEALTH IN ARMIES, 
 
 FOR THE USE OF 
 
 VOLUNTEER OFFICERS. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ORDRONAUX, M. D., 
 ( 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 SECOND EDITION", WITH ADDITIONS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 D. YAK NOSTRAOT), 192 BROADWAY. 
 1863. 
 
07 
 
 BIOLOGY 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, 
 
 BY D. VAN NOSTKAND, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
 O. A. ALVOED, PKINTKB. 
 
TO 
 
 DR. JOHN H. GRISCOM, 
 
 AS A TESTIMONIAL OF BB8PECT 
 
 FOE HIS LIFE-LONG DEVOTION, AND VALUABLE COXTEIBUTIONS 
 
 TO THB 
 
 SCIENCE OF PUBLIC HYGIENE. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE Preservation of Health in Armies, is everywhere 
 a subject of recognized importance. So much, in fact, de- 
 pends upon it, that precautionary measures in this behalf 
 can never be exaggerated. All that can be done, should 
 be done to protect troops against preventable disease. 
 
 It seems to have been formerly believed, that the pres- 
 ence of a Surgeon in each regiment was all sufficient for 
 this purpose ; and that officers and men could go their 
 way free from any responsibility or apprehension on that 
 score. But experience has proved that the preservation 
 of health, in either one man, or many, is not purely ob- 
 jective with Surgeons. Too much, in this particular, is 
 expected from them, and too little is done by officers to 
 cooperate with them. Armies, like patients, must act in 
 concert with their medical advisers, and make the matter 
 of health subjective as well as objective. Officers and 
 men need an insight into the general principles of hy- 
 giene, in order to be able to assist, themselves, in further- 
 ing prophylactic measures. 
 
 To supply them with the requisite amount of infor- 
 mation, the accompanying popular manual has therefore 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 been prepared. In this, nothing like a formal treatise or 
 text-book has been attempted. Its brevity, its omission 
 of all scientific discussion, and of many statistical tables, 
 will sufficiently indicate that the mission it is designed to 
 perform is one eminently suggestive, and not in any sense 
 authoritative. To " help, rather than to hinder, 1 ' is the 
 maxim which has guided me in its compilation ; and de- 
 siring more especially to make this little " hornbook " of 
 use to military officers and soldiers, rather than to Sur- 
 geons who possess such great textual authorities as Ham- 
 ilton, Gross, Hennen, Larrey, and Boudin I have conse- 
 quently avoided as much as possible the terminology of 
 medical science, as well as the discussion of medical prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 Trusting that these desultory thoughts, which have 
 thus crystallized themselves into the form of "Hints," 
 may be productive of some measure of good, not only in 
 provoking greater watchfulness over preventable disease ; 
 but also by stimulating other minds to worthier efforts in 
 the cause of Military Hygiene, I now commit them to the 
 hands of my countrymen, asking only to be permitted to 
 remind them, that " Good fortune ever fights on the side 
 of prudence." 
 
 J. O. 
 
 r ork, I 
 May 23, 1861. 
 
 ROSLTN, near !N"ew York, ) 
 
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 THE first edition of this work being now exhausted, 
 and the necessity which called for its compilation still 
 continuing, a second edition has been prepared, contain- 
 ing some alterations and much new matter. And not 
 wishing to depart from the original intent of the work, 
 which is a popular synopsis of the leading principles 
 of Military Hygiene, as designed for laymen rather than 
 surgeons, I have accordingly discussed and developed 
 these additional topics under the same light, and in the 
 same language as heretofore, leaving the physiognomy 
 of the volume still unchanged, and simply that of a 
 
 manual of Hints on Health in Armies. 
 
 J. 0. 
 
 EOSLYN, near New York, July, 1663. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. ON ARMIES, . . . . .9 
 
 II. ON THE MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF RECRUITS, 17 
 III. ON THE EDUCATION OF RECRUITS, . . 22 
 
 IY. ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND HYGIENE OF BAR- 
 RACKS, . . . . .36 
 Y. ON THE MARCH, .... 41 
 YI. ON THE CAMP, . . . . .52 
 YIL ON THE FOOD OF SOLDIERS, AND EDUCATION OF 
 
 COOKS, ..... 61 
 VIII. ON THE CLOTHING, . . . .76 
 
 IX. ON THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE IN GENERAL, 
 AND THE INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF 
 HEALTH, . . . .82 
 
 X. ON HOSPITALS, . . . .105 
 
 APPENDIX. FOOD. CULINARY FORMULAS. ALIMENT- 
 ARY TABLES. HYGIENE OF BARRACKS. 
 CLOTHING. CAMPING-. SHELTER-TENTS 
 AND CLOAKS . 115 
 
HINTS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 HEALTH OF ARMIES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON ARMIES. 
 
 
 
 IT may be stated as a fundamental maxim in the 
 science of warfare, that a state of perfect bodily health 
 is indispensable to the successful discharge of a soldier's 
 duties. Whatever influence (whether of soil, climate, 
 diet, or discipline) interrupts this physical condition, 
 disqualifies him to that extent for active usefulness. 
 Armies being aggregations of individuals, each con- 
 tributing something towards the strength, support, 
 and moral influence of the general mass, it follows 
 that the withdrawal of any units from this sum is 
 pro tanto a diminution of the effectiveness of the 
 whole. And worse than this, the weak and sick, in 
 proportion as their numbers increase, demoralize the 
 healthy, as well by the spectacle of their infirmities 
 as by the increased duties, responsibilities, and ap- 
 prehensions for the future which must inevitably fall 
 
10 ON AEMIES. 
 
 upon them. A sick army is al ways a demoralized 
 force. Men, whose organic functions are either inter- 
 rupted or vitiated by disease, can not perform their 
 duties as before. They may still have courage, but 
 courage in such cases becomes simply a spasm, and 
 is lacking in all qualities of endurance. The first 
 duty of a skilful commander is, therefore, to preserve 
 the health of his troops ; for their health like their am- 
 munition is the instrument with which they can alone 
 hope to conquer. 
 
 It seems to be hardly known outside of armies 
 that the proportion of their mortality, under the most 
 favorable circumstances, is twice that of civil life, al- 
 though in this latter so many patent causes of disease 
 manifest themselves as would make us infer differ- 
 ently. Dr. Farr, from observations made on the 
 British army, presents us with the following fearful 
 statistics : 
 
 KBLATION OP MORTALITY. Deaths annually to 
 
 1,000 living. 
 r AGES. OCCUPATION. EATIO. 
 
 20 to 25 { Chilians 8 ' 4 
 
 ( Soldiers, .... 17-0 
 
 25 to 30 | Civilians - 9 ' 2 
 ( Soldiers, .... 183 
 
 30 to 35 I Civilians > .... 10-2 
 ( Soldiers, .... 18'4 
 
 35 to 40 | Civilians, n ' 6 
 ( Soldiers, .... 19'2 
 
 That this mortality is reducible to a ratio at least 
 equal to that of civil life, is not to be questioned ; for 
 
ON AEMIES. 11 
 
 we see it already so foreshadowed in the less per- 
 centage observable among old soldiers, who, without 
 any additional safeguards to health beyond those pos- 
 sessed by their younger brethren, are yet from habit 
 and induration protected from those lurking morbific 
 agencies w r hich decimate the latter ; and if so reducible, 
 then it is the duty of the state to prevent it, because 
 preventable mortality is criminal mortality, and the 
 responsibility for its occurrence rests at the door of 
 those through whose negligence it has happened. 
 
 * It is to a want of observance of simple hygienic 
 rules, that we must charge this needless waste of 
 human life ; for it is not sufficient to say that the 
 inevitable duties of a soldier guard-mounting, drills, 
 fatiguing marches, changes of climate, diet, and dwell- 
 ing necessitate so high a ratio of mortality. Expe- 
 rience, in fact, proves the contrary. Hunters and 
 trappers are proverbially healthy men, although ex- 
 posed to as great fatigues, hardship, extremes of 
 weather, and vicissitudes* of diet as soldiers. The 
 cause of this excessive mortality is plainly due to 
 something different from any one of the above as- 
 signed reasons, or even all of them combined. 
 
 Applied either separately or jointly to any one 
 individual, they do not, as in the case of hunters, 
 justify us in considering them as efficient causes. We 
 must look, therefore, for another and more predispos- 
 ing agency in the production of disease. And that 
 agency we shall find in the gregarious mode of living, 
 and the general negligence of preventive measures 
 which prevails in most armies. The former is un- 
 
12 OX AEMIE8. 
 
 doubtedly inevitable, but it need not be accom- 
 panied by a total disregard of those rules of health 
 which are found indispensable to the well-being of all 
 large communities. Men congregated in masses, and 
 in small areas overtasked, uncleanly, and improp- 
 erly fed, whether they be soldiers or artisans, are 
 subjected to precisely the same laws of health and dis- 
 ease, and the violation of those laws always entails 
 the same fearful penalty upon all. 
 
 Military science has made stupendous progress 
 within the present generation. In the improvement 
 of arms in particular, it has signally triumphed. So 
 terrible is its enginery now, that the possibility of 
 any defence against its effects is almost abandoned. 
 The art of offence has culminated. Before the de- 
 structive missiles hurled from the months of rifled 
 cannon, neither wood nor stone can stand ; and the 
 reduction of any fortress against which such ordnance 
 is brought to bear is simply a question of time. But 
 with all the glory which tne art of warfare has ac- 
 quired, and with all the good it may have accom- 
 plished in equalizing disparity of forces, it will yet 
 have failed in the first of all essentials, and left an 
 unrelenting foe in its rear, so long as it ignores the 
 necessity of incorporating within its principles a well- 
 digested system of hygiene. Without this, the direst 
 enemy will be found always in the very midst of the 
 largest assemblage of men ; striking right and left, 
 at night and in the day, the " lean, cold hand of dis- 
 ease " will dismember an army more certainly than 
 those who, heralded by drum and bugle, and visible 
 
ON AEMIES. 13 
 
 to sight, fall on it only with bayonet and sabre-stroke. 
 It was Frederic the Great who used to remark with 
 a sigh, that fever annually robbed him of more men 
 than seven pitched battles. And yet, long as this 
 startling truth, has been known, and fearfully as it 
 has illustrated itself in every army since the day 
 when it was first uttered, no adequate measures have 
 yet been taken in many countries to prevent the evil 
 which thus decimates their armies. Overcrowded, 
 ill-ventilated barracks, small, foul tents, indifferent 
 provisions, badly organized hospitals, will continue 
 to do their work of silent destruction, until med- 
 ical men are allowed some power and discretion in 
 the housing, feeding, and superintendence of troops. 
 When this shall be done, we can hope for a marked 
 diminution in the ratio of their mortality ; but until 
 it is done, we must expect to see the flower of every 
 army cut off, and the state shorn of its most useful 
 members in times of direst necessity. 
 
 It is upon officers, therefore, of every grade, that 
 rests the responsibility of preserving the health of 
 their men. From the highest to the humblest each 
 has his portion to command, and inasmuch as any 
 wanton, unjustifiable waste of life, either in an assault 
 or on a battle-field, exposes an officer to a court-mar- 
 tial, so with the same propriety, and by parity of 
 reason, should any negligence of sanitary rules, re- 
 sulting in unnecessary loss of life, expose him to the 
 same penalties. With a sufficient medical staff at his 
 elbow, it is idle for the officer to attempt to shield 
 himself behind the plea of ignorance, or those petri- 
 
M ON AKMIES. 
 
 fied formalities which are the heir-looms of inflated 
 officialism. In the presence of elementary forces 
 hastening to develop disease, red-tape and official ru- 
 brics must vanish ; hygiene, without waiting for the 
 fecial college to declare war, must be allowed to at- 
 tack the enemy and to demolish him, ere he has as- 
 sembled his forces , after which " general orders " can 
 again march on in their old conventional ways. 
 
 A chief source of disturbance to the health of all 
 new levies is found in the suddenness with which they 
 are translated from the comforts of home, and the 
 moderate, generally self-imposed and self-regulated 
 duties of civil life, to the extremes of diet, (quantity 
 and quality,) fatigue and exposure, incidental to active 
 operations in the field. This suddenness of transition 
 is always depressing to the nervous energies in any 
 contingency, either of civil or military life, but par- 
 ticularly, and more dangerously so in the latter, be- 
 cause of the necessary inability of obtaining periods 
 of intervening rest during which nature can gradually 
 recover herself from the direct and reflex shocks under 
 whose influence she is laboring.* Placed in this po- 
 
 * The statistics of the French army show the following to be 
 the average proportion of its mortality: 
 
 LOSS IN EACH 1,000. 
 
 During the 1st year of service, . . . . 7'5 
 
 " " 2d " " 6-5 
 
 " 3d " .... 5-2 
 
 " 4th " . 4-3 
 
 " " 5th " " .... 3' 
 
 " 6th " " .... 2' 
 
 " " 7th " " .... 2- 
 
 It is thus seen that the first year is the most fatal to soldiers. 
 
ON AKMIES. 15 
 
 sition, the soldier may be considered as directly in- 
 viting an attack of disease ; nor will it be slow to 
 appear, or fail to assume an epidemic character when 
 corresponding in type to the constitutional tenden- 
 cies of the season. 
 
 Now, the best protection to health is the posses- 
 sion of health, which like a shield protects us against 
 morbific influences only so long as we preserve it 
 entire. Other things being equal, in any exposure 
 to the sources of disease a man in vigorous health 
 will longest endure, while those of inferior physical 
 tone soonest succumb. Hence, it becomes, in an 
 economical point of view a matter of the gravest im- 
 portance to the state, to see that its armies are formed 
 out of the most able-bodied of its adult population. 
 The soldier must be healthy at the start, if he would 
 enter the service with any hope of being useful to his 
 country, or to acquire distinction for himself. Sta- 
 tistics show that disease is nearly four times * more 
 formidable to armies than bullets, and the weak are 
 very sure to fall first beneath the shafts of this un- 
 erring marksman. This being the case, science is 
 called upon to provide means adequate to interrupt- 
 ing all preventable diseases in the soldier when actu- 
 ally in the service, as also to sift out from among 
 recruits all those whose physical constitution is per- 
 
 * The mortality tables in the British army in the Crimea show 
 that in the first five months (from Sept. 6, 1854, to Feb. 5," 1855) 
 it lost at the rate of 391 per thousand by disease, and only 108 by 
 wounds. The French, in the last six months of the campaign, had 
 of killed and wounded 21,937 to 101,128 sick with various diseases. 
 
16 ON AKMIES. 
 
 manently defective. We must have healthy, well- 
 knit men for recruits in order to make strong and 
 resolute soldiers, and we must have strong and res- 
 olute soldiers in order to form invincible armies. 
 
 It will be perceived from these observations, that 
 a well ordained and enforced system of hygiene is 
 indispensable to the maintenance of a healthy arm^ 
 and in order that such a system may work to its 
 greatest advantage, not only the surgeons who plan 
 and direct its details, but, and as far as can be intel- 
 ligible to non-medical men, all officers should know 
 enough of its outlines to enable them the better to 
 cooperate with their medical advisers.* 
 
 The first step in the formation of an army is the 
 selection of young and able-bodied recruits. And for 
 the purpose of securing these, a thorough medical ex- 
 amination of each candidate should be made. This 
 examination must be conducted by the medical in- 
 spector in person, assisted by a non-commissioned 
 officer, and always by daylight. 
 
 * The opposition to sanitary reforms, which is encountered 
 not solely among the ignorant poor, but too often among educated 
 laymen, leads to the belief that the cause of antagonism is similar 
 in both classes, and resides in that ignorance of the powers of 
 hygiene, which accepts disease as a fate, and consequently scoffs 
 at those who endeavor to avert its shafts. When men can be 
 made to believe that health is our natural state, and that God has 
 given us means for preserving it in the very elements around us, 
 they will no longer hesitate as to the line of their duty, but will 
 zealously cooperate in all efforts to prevent disease. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 GENERAL RULES FOR THE EXAMINATION OF 
 RECRUITS. 
 
 THE surgeon, having first satisfied himself that 
 the candidate is within the prescribed age, (20 to 45,) 
 will order him to be stripped naked, and placed with 
 his back to the light. 
 
 GENERAL ANATOMICAL FEATURES. Placing him- 
 self at a convenient distance he will first scan the 
 anatomical proportions, or general conformation of 
 body, shape of the head, chest, abdomen, and limbs 
 of the recruit, viewing him in front, rear, and side- 
 w r ise ; after which he will command him to march 
 forward and backward, cause him to bend forward, 
 jump, kneel, sit and rise rapidly, all the while notic- 
 ing whether there be free and unembarrassed motion 
 of the large joints and muscles. 
 
 FIRST OBSERVATION. The surgeon will now pro- 
 ceed to a particular examination of the head, ears, the 
 hearing, eyes, and teeth. The eyes, and their power 
 of sight require the closest scrutiny. For this pur- 
 pose the recruit should be tested with suitable objects 
 
18 GENERAL RULES FOR THE 
 
 at various distances. Each eye should be separately 
 tested as by taking aim, &c. ; tests for color blind- 
 ness should also be applied. 
 
 SECOND OBSERVATION. Examinations must then 
 be made of the neck, chest, (external and by ausculta- 
 tion,) back and loins, including the arms, their flexor 
 and extensor muscles, the hands and all the digital 
 muscles, and particularly all the articulations. Eve- 
 ry finger, the wrists, the elbow and shoulder joints 
 must be flexed and extended, separately and to- 
 gether. 
 
 THIRD OBSERVATION. The abdomen and but- 
 tocks, the testicles, scrotum, and inguinal regions, the 
 penis, and anus must next be inspected. 
 
 FOURTH OBSERVATION. The thighs and calves of 
 the legs, with all their articulations, must be inspect- 
 ed ; varicose veins must not be overlooked. 
 
 FIFTH OBSERVATION. The feet and their shape ; 
 the toes, their joints and muscles, must be carefully 
 inspected. Also the mode of step. Is the recruit 
 splay-footed ? Do the toes turn in or out ? 
 
 SIXTH OBSERVATION. The stature of the recruit 
 should now be measured, and where there is any 
 suspicion of his attempt to increase its appearance, 
 he should be measured supine, instead of erect. It 
 should be noticed also whether he has had the small- 
 pox or been vaccinated.* 
 
 * Vaccination, although not insisted upon as a prerequisite 
 to enlistment, should be performed upon all who have not been 
 thus protected, as soon as they reach a depot. The vesicle will 
 not prevent the use of the arm in drilling, and is too slight an in- 
 
EXAMINATION OF KECKUITS. 19 
 
 DISQUALIFYING DISEASES. 
 
 These may be divided into two classes, viz. : such 
 as imply absolute, and such as imply relative incapacity 
 for. military service. 
 
 CLASS FIRvST. 
 
 Relating to Organic or Articular Degeneration, General 
 Mai-conformation or Absence of Parts. 
 
 Phthisis, aneurism of large arteries, scrofulous ul- 
 cers, voluminous goitre ; privation of sight or hearing ; 
 dumbness ; permanent aphonia ; loss of an arm, leg. 
 foot, hand ; curvature of the long bones ; rickets ; 
 anchylosis ; paralysis, or retraction of the flexor or 
 extensor muscles of a limb ; atrophy ; obesity ; ta- 
 lipes. 
 
 CLASS SECOND. 
 
 Relating to Particular Affections of the Head,, Trunk, 
 Limbs, and. Skin. 
 
 Extensive injuries of skull, (depression, exfolia- 
 tion,) giving rise to occasional giddiness, drowsiness, 
 pains in the head, and affections of the intellect ; loss 
 of right eye ; fistula lachryrnalis, habitual diseases 
 of eyes, ophthalmia, rheums, &c. ; weakness of sight ; 
 myopia ; nyctalopia ; amblyopia ; deformity of nose, 
 
 convenience to be thought of as against the advantages secured. 
 Let this duty to society never be omitted by surgeons. 
 
20 GENERAL RULES FOR THE 
 
 capable of interrupting freedom of respiration ; ozoena ; 
 caries and incurable polypus ; incurably fetid breath ; 
 discharges from the ears ; loss of upper or lower in- 
 cisors ; necrosis of jaw ; fistulas of the maxillary 
 sinuses or salivary glands ; difficulty of deglutition, 
 from paralysis or other incurable lesion ; chronic 
 affections of the organs of hearing, voice, or speech, 
 sensiby impairing their use. 
 
 NECK, CHEST, ARMS, HANDS. 
 
 Ulcers, and scrofulous tumors ; deformity of 
 chest ; Pott's disease, or any spinal curvature affect- 
 ing respiration or the carrying of arms and wearing 
 of accoutrements ; phthisis, (incipient ;) chronic asth- 
 ma ; habitual haemoptysis ; total loss of the thumb 
 or of the fore-finger of the right hand, or two other 
 fingers of one hand, or the mutilation of the last joints 
 of one or several fingers of the right hand ; * paralysis 
 of either arm ; affections of any muscles or joints in 
 the arm or hand impeding their free motion, (arthri- 
 tis, chronic rheumatism,) and incurable deformities 
 in any of these parts. 
 
 ABDOMEN. 
 
 Irreducible hernias ; calculus ; gravel ; habitual 
 incontinence or retention of urine ; fistulas and se- 
 
 * These deformities do not disqualify the recruit for service 
 absolutely, as he may still discharge the duties of a miner, sapper, 
 pioneer, or artillerist and many others above enumerated would 
 still leave him in a condition to perform certain garrison duties. 
 The disqualifying diseases which we have cited, refer more par- 
 ticularly to recruits designed for active service in the field. 
 
EXAMINATION OF RECRUITS. 21 
 
 vere diseases of the urinary passages ; strangulation 
 of testicle, sarcocele ; hydrocele ; varicocele ; and 
 all incurable affections of the scrotum, testicles, pe- 
 nis, or spermatic cord ; ulcerated haemorrhoids ; 
 fistula in ano ; periodical hsemorrhoidal flux ; habitu- 
 al incontinence of faeces, and prolapsus ani ; chronic 
 weakness of the loins, accompanied by inveterate 
 lumbago. 
 
 LOWER LIMBS AND FEET. 
 
 Large varices ; incurable ulcers ; affections of 
 muscles or joints impeding their free motion. Se- 
 vere diseases of the bones ; loss of great toe, or two 
 toes of a foot ; incurable deformities of feet. 
 
 SKIN AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFECTIONS. 
 
 All contagious diseases when become chronic and 
 inveterate, such as tinea, herpes, psora, elephantiasis 
 and lepra ; well-marked cachexy of a scorbutic or 
 glandular character ; debility and extreme emaciation ; 
 a too diminutive or tall stature accompanied by 
 weakness, and leanness or obesity ; gout and sciatica ; 
 chronic rheumatism impeding the free motion of the 
 trunk or limbs ; epilepsy ; convulsions ; chorea ; 
 general or partial paralysis ; imbecility. 
 
 NOTE. The surgeon will, on a printed blank fur- 
 nished for this purpose, note the cause of rejection 
 of every recruit. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 EDUCATION OF RECRUITS. 
 
 EECRUITS, when assembled and about to be drafted 
 into various corps, should first of all things be classi- 
 fied with reference to such antecedents of trade or 
 vocation, or such bodily or mental capacity as can 
 impart to them predominant qualifications for the 
 different arms of the service. By this means much 
 time will be gained which otherwise would have to 
 be consumed in a species of rough and hasty appren- 
 ticeship in these several preliminaries to military 
 usefulness. This apprenticeship is always more or 
 less chafing to young recruits, who are apt to suppose 
 that once enlisted they are fit to undertake all a sol- 
 dier's duties, and who repudiate every idea of mechan- 
 ical handicraft as incompatible with* a military pro- 
 fession. Yet learn they must, and the more nearly 
 the duty corresponds to former avocations, the more 
 rapidly they will learn, and the more easily and 
 cheerfully they will labor. Time and health will 
 thus both be economized. 
 
 The following table will illustrate the subject by 
 
EDUCATION OF KECKUITS. 23 
 
 furnishing the elements on which such classifications 
 should be based. 
 
 CLASSIFICATIONS BASED ON ANTECEDENT QUALIFICA- 
 TIONS.* 
 
 Corps. Adjuvant qualifications. 
 
 f Should have worked in a furnace or 
 forge, been a blacksmith, nailsmith, 
 Engineer. J cartwri gK carpenter, joiner, miner, 
 * mason, bridge-builder, cooper, boat- 
 builder, saddler or harness-maker, and < 
 generally acquainted with tools. 
 f Should have been a cartwright, carman, 
 Artillery. <{ or worked in iron and wood ; accus- 
 ^ tomed to ride, drive, or tend horses. 
 
 {Should have been accustomed to riding, 
 driving, or tending horses. Should 
 be tall and large-framed. 
 {Should be lithe, well-knit, not over-tall, 
 muscular, accustomed to long tramps, 
 to hunting, and to the use of fire-arms. 
 
 Infantry of j Same as foregoing, except being taller 
 the line. ( and larger-framed. 
 
 * The dynamometer is an instrument whose assistance should 
 be invoked in classifying men for service in those branches re- 
 quiring great manual or renal strength. In selecting artillerists, 
 whether on sea or land, sappers and miners, arid others of kindred 
 occupations, its scale should always be applied, in order to de- 
 termine the positive power possessed. We accordingly subjoin 
 
24: 
 
 EDUCATION OF RECRUITS. 
 
 In the European service stature is a prominent 
 element of classification. It is not so yet with us. 
 Extremes only are avoided. 
 
 As raw troops are an unreliable material with 
 which to undertake a campaign, serving too often 
 only to encumber hospitals and to confuse the move- 
 ments of regulars in times of peril, it becomes of the 
 greatest importance to give the recruit the benefit of 
 some probationary exercises in barracks by way of 
 weaning him from old habits, and gradually strength- 
 ening and disciplining him for the severe duties of the 
 field. As this- discipline involves a radical change in 
 diet, exercise, sleep, and clothing, it is necessary that 
 it should be conducted under the immediate direction 
 
 a table illustrative of the averages of human strength as measured 
 by it, in the French service. 
 
 RENAL STRENGTH. 
 
 MANITAl STRENGTH. 
 
 
 FH 
 
 
 g 
 
 
 1- 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 *; 
 
 M 
 
 ! 
 
 0) 
 
 6f 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 O 
 
 5 
 
 * 5 
 
 ^ 
 
 ? 
 
 5 
 
 r^ 
 
 ^3 
 
 be 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 fcD 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 fi 
 
 <1 
 
 PH 
 
 
 P 
 
 & 
 
 P 
 
 < 
 
 ^ 
 
 F 
 
 ^ 
 
 11 
 
 Myr. 
 
 4.8 
 
 19 
 
 Myr. 
 13.2 
 
 11 
 
 Kilo. 
 29.2 
 
 10.7 
 
 9 9 
 
 19 
 
 Kilo. 
 79 4 
 
 35 4 
 
 35.0 
 
 12 
 
 5.1 
 
 20 
 
 13.8 
 
 12 
 
 83.6 
 
 13.9 
 
 11.7 
 
 20 
 
 84 3 
 
 39.3 
 
 37.1 
 
 13 
 
 6.9 
 
 21 
 
 14.6 
 
 13 
 
 89.81 16.6 
 
 15 
 
 21 
 
 8fi 4 
 
 43.0 38.0 
 
 14 
 
 8.1 
 
 25 
 
 15.6 
 
 14 
 
 47.9 
 
 21.4 
 
 18.8 
 
 25 
 
 88,7 
 
 44. li 40.0 
 
 15 
 
 8.8 
 
 80 
 
 15.4 
 
 15 
 
 57.1 
 
 27.8 22.6 
 
 SO 
 
 R9 
 
 44.7 41.3 
 
 16 
 
 10.2 
 
 40 
 
 12.2 
 
 16 
 
 63.9 
 
 32.3! 26.8 
 
 40 
 
 87.0 
 
 41. 2i 38.3 
 
 17 
 
 12.6 
 
 50 ! 10.1 
 
 17 
 
 71.0 
 
 36.2 81.9'. 50 
 
 74.0 36. 4; 33.0 
 
 18 
 
 13.0 
 
 60 9.3 
 
 18 
 
 79.2 
 
 38.6 
 
 35.0 
 
 , 60 
 
 56.0 
 
 30.3: 26.0 
 
 See Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales, art. Dynamometre. 
 The French Kilogramme is equal to 2 Ibs. 3 oz. 5 drs. Avoir- 
 dupois. 
 
 The French Myriagramme is equal to ten Kilogrammes. 
 
EDUCATION OF EECKUITS. 25 
 
 of a medical officer, in order that the constitutional 
 idiosyncrasies of some may be duly and gradually 
 overcome, instead of being rudely shocked by an un- 
 relaxing severity which may tend to develop disease 
 otherwise preventable. The medical officer, there- 
 fore, should be allowed to grant dispensations to re- 
 cruits newly enlisted, from the performance of certain 
 duties, or in the duration of their execution, until 
 satisfied that the recruit is able to bear them. Thus 
 guard-mounting after the fatigues of the day should 
 be regulated in duration according to the ability of 
 the recruit, the season, and the weather ; exercise of 
 a new kind to him should be similarly conducted, the 
 idea always being to convert the recruit into a soldier 
 by making every step of the apprenticeship a profit- 
 able one in health and a stimulus to his ambition, in- 
 stead of breaking him down by the first week's dis- 
 cipline, and keeping him in hospital for a month to 
 get over it. 
 
 That exercise in the open air invigorates the 
 frame all from experience know. By increasing the 
 activity of our functions, and rendering us less sus- 
 ceptible to the influences of weather, it enables us to 
 perform fatiguing labors without any ill consequences, 
 and thus develops in all a high measure of muscular 
 ability. But this result is not immediately to be at- 
 tained, any more than the growth of the body can be 
 compelled beyond nature's own ordained periods. 
 Muscle like mind must be gradually educated, and in 
 both undue tension or ill-regulated effort only serves 
 to retard development. A certain time is required 
 2 
 
26 EDUCATION OF RECRUITS. 
 
 to habituate the frame to continuous effort of even 
 the most moderate kind, and the longer the period of 
 apprenticeship, the more confirmed will be its good 
 effects. Among the Romans, military education be- 
 gan in extreme youth. Gymnastics and games of all 
 kinds inured the citizen from early life to the fatigues 
 of field exercises. Hence, when he arrived at man's 
 estate he was a perfected soldier in physical devel- 
 opment already. 
 
 But with us, no preliminary education of the 
 muscles in youth prepares the recruit for the active 
 duties of the soldier. Fresh from the long-debili- 
 tating life of the counting-room, the factory, or the 
 thousand sedentary pursuits of the civilian, he steps 
 into the ranks of the army, and loads himself down 
 with arms and baggage to make a fatiguing march 
 of many miles. Weak in his shoulders, his loins, his 
 wrists, and his knees not carrying so much weight 
 once in a year as his knapsack amounts to, and hardly 
 ever marching off ten consecutive miles at any one 
 time or sleeping out of his own bed, it is little short 
 of cruelty to take such a man into the field and im- 
 pose all its unrelenting hardships upon him. His life 
 is jeopardized from the very start by his own insuffi- 
 ciency of muscular discipline, and he can hardly be 
 of use to the state although burning with the ardor 
 of patriotism. 
 
 Let officers, then, remember that the human ma- 
 chine is capable of performing only a very limited 
 amount of any new duty at first, and that if pushed 
 beyond this, its energies are exhausted and a typhoid 
 
EDUCATION OF KECKUITS. 27 
 
 state supervenes. Dr. Levy, one of the surgeons in 
 chief to the French army, remarks that forced marches, 
 heavy drills, and too prolonged exercises always ki- 
 crease the hospital list ; and even where the muscu- 
 lar strain is not sufficient to produce acute disease, 
 and yet daily transcends the measure of individual 
 strength and organic repair, however slightly, it 
 gradually and insidiously produces a state of dete- 
 rioration and general debility. 
 
 In order to avoid so disastrous a result, the rule 
 of exercise should be one of gradual progression. It 
 is always better to stop short of actual fatigue. For 
 this purpose, recruits should be drilled with moder- 
 ation at first. Twice daily, with intervening hours 
 of rest, the drill not extending beyond two hours at 
 each session, seems about as much as any new recruit 
 coming from sedentary pursuits can endure. This 
 amount can be increased, of course, after a few days' 
 practice with the majority of men ; but there will al- 
 ways be some who will lag under the effort, and to 
 these, hygiene, rather than severity, had better be 
 applied. Muscular vigor is not a fixed and definite 
 power in man. It varies with the age, original con- 
 stitution, diet, profession, season, and weather. These 
 elements must be fully considered and have due 
 weight allowed them, when allotting measures of ex- 
 ercise and effort to recruits. By degrees, all may be 
 brought to bear the amount of exercise required by 
 the most laborious kinds of drilling, but caution at 
 the outset must be observed with the younger re- 
 cruits. A month is a short time in which to make a 
 
28 EDUCATION OF RECRUITS. 
 
 penman, with attenuated wrists and fingers, capable cf 
 twirling a musket or sword ; or a tailor or shoemaker 
 wkh shrunken legs capable of marching fifteen miles, 
 day after day, fully armed and equipped. Some may 
 attain to this ability in that time, but it is certain that 
 all can not. The competent should speedily be trans- 
 ferred to their various places in the field, and the 
 tardy kept drilling until in like manner perfected. 
 This graduation of the former will serve greatly to 
 stimulate the latter. 
 
 Another fact to be borne in mind is, that all ex- 
 ercises do not produce. the same effects upon the sys- 
 tem. Some develop one class of muscles, and some 
 another. Steady, measured exercise which produces 
 a harmonious development of all the muscles, rather 
 than strong, violent efforts which develop only par- 
 ticular parts, is what the soldier needs. In modern 
 times, it is not athletes capable of bending the bow 
 of Ulysses, or wielding the club of Hercules, that we 
 need, but active, lithe, symmetrical, and indurated 
 men. The French zouave or chasseur is not a Her- 
 cules in size or even strength, but like a combination 
 of steel and whalebone, he wears well under fatigue, 
 and springs back from it with wonderful recupera- 
 tion. 
 
 Most authorities in military surgery are agreed 
 in denouncing the enlistment of men under 20 years 
 of age. Statistics show that enlistments made in vio- 
 lation of this suggestion only serve to encumber the 
 hospitals, without otherwise increasing the strength 
 of armies. As an illustration of the importance of 
 
EDUCATION OF RECRUITS. 29 
 
 age, it is only sufficient to state that, in the French 
 campaign of 1805, the* army marched some 1,200 
 
 miles to reach the battle-field of Austerlitz, without 
 
 7 
 
 meeting with any appreciable sickness or loss in 
 numbers. Its youngest soldiers were 22 years old, 
 and had served two years. But in the campaign of 
 1809 the army inarched only a short distance from 
 Germany into Austria, and yet, before reaching Vi- 
 enna, all its hospitals were filled. The majority of 
 its new conscripts were under twenty years of age. 
 It was on this occasion that Napoleon wrote to the 
 legislative senate asking for a new levy, and saying : 
 " / must have grown men ; toys serve only to encum- 
 ber the hospitals and roadsides" 
 
 Kecruits should first be drilled in the lightest of 
 their usual garbs, (fatigue dress.) No overcoat or 
 knapsacks should be worn until fully accustomed to 
 the manual of arms. Afterwards these impedimenta, 
 as the Romans called baggage, can be put on gradually. 
 The drill over, the men should be ordered to wash 
 their faces, hands, and arms, if the weather be warm, 
 otherwise it is not necessary. These precautionary 
 measures will both refresh them, as w r ell as afford 
 protection against imprudence in drinking cold water 
 when overheated, and in exposure to draughts of air. 
 It should never be omitted in summer. 
 
 Recruits should not be exercised fasting, nor in 
 the full blaze. of a noon-day sun in summer, and it is 
 well to allow during the drill an occasional intermis- 
 sion for a few minutes for the purposes of rest. In 
 order to guard them against the effects of the ever- 
 
30 EDUCATION OF RECRUITS. 
 
 repeated imprudence of unbuttoning their jackets after 
 drilling to " cool off," the last part of the exercise 
 should be reduced in vigor, and thus afford the cir- 
 culation an opportunity gradually to diminish its 
 rapidity. 
 
 The new exercise of prolonged running, better 
 known as the " gymnastic step," is one of exceeding 
 danger when performed with knapsack and accoutre- 
 ments. The very constrained condition of the chest, 
 particularly when a cross-belt is worn, impedes free 
 respiration ; the lungs are rapidly inflated, but only 
 in their upper portion, while the lower lobes re- 
 tain too long the air required to keep them dilated ; 
 whence follow an increasing engorgement and diffi- 
 culty of respiration, verging almost towards suffoca- 
 tion. Great care is consequently required in initiating 
 soldiers into this most trying of all exercises, for an 
 error in excess here may speedily cause haemorrhage, 
 and permanent pulmonary or cardiac mischief. The 
 first thing to be taught the soldier is to harmonize 
 the breathing with the motions of the limbs. This 
 act once acquired, he can run, even when burdened, 
 with facility. 
 
 But there will always be found a large number 
 of men who cannot run with facility. These will 
 ever lag in such an exercise, and so interrupt the or- 
 der of the column. Where special duties of running 
 devolve upon any corps, it would be proper to recruit 
 it from among those who are possessed of this faculty. 
 As a general rule, small, lithe men, with broad 
 shoulders, run and march best, and it is also to be 
 
EDUCATION OF EECEUITS. 31 
 
 ierved that, past the ago of forty, few men can fol- 
 low this rapid step. Zouaves and riflemen, therefore, 
 should be formed out of only young men. 
 
 Horsemanship is another of those exercises which 
 require gradual progression. Although unquestion- 
 ably healthy for the majority of men, there are yet 
 those in whom ill consequences follow from its ex- 
 cessive practice. Hernias, and inflammations of the 
 testicles often testify to the effects of incessant jolt- 
 ing in the saddle, and it is advisable for all horsemen 
 to protect themselves against these accidents by 
 wearing a suspensory bandage. 
 
 But the best exercises for the soldier are those in 
 which he does not simply obey a command mechan- 
 ically, but employs his own mind and body under 
 the varying impulse of each present necessity. Thus 
 in fencing, broadsword and bayonet exercise, he has 
 to exert his own faculties of offence and defence, in- 
 dependent of the command of any superior ; and the 
 necessary extension of limbs, variety of attitudes, and 
 rapidity of motion which it requires the sudden con- 
 traction and relaxation of muscle, and the accelera- 
 tion of respiration which it occasions, heightens the 
 tone of the whole system. The eyesight is quick- 
 ened, the chest enlarged, the joints strengthened, the 
 body rendered supple and muscular so as to secure 
 the best and readiest use of all its faculties. No one, 
 who has seen the almost miraculous change in the 
 port and strength of the soldier, which can be 
 wrought by fencing and the bayonet exercise, will 
 
32 EDUCATION OF EECEUITS. 
 
 hesitate to assign them the first rank in the hygiene 
 of a military education. 
 
 Between the hours of drill, the men should, under 
 the guidance of their various officers, be taught how 
 to clean and keep in repair their arms ; how to make 
 cartridges ; fill shells ; take apart and pack gun- 
 carriages ; make fuzes gabions fascines, &c. Any 
 little occupation like this, by keeping the mind ac- 
 tive, stimulates it to acquisition and raises the sol- 
 dier's own self-respect. 
 
 Besides the drill within the barrack-yard, and as 
 part of the same in time consumed, recruits should 
 be made to perform daily marches in the field, fully 
 equipped. They should begin with short distances, 
 then longer ones, throwing out flanking parties and 
 advanced guards, establishing pickets, encamping and 
 striking tents while on the march. The art of throw- 
 ing up intrenchments, making and repelling feigned 
 attacks, should also be taught, in order to inspire 
 them with confidence and self-reliance. These daily 
 marches varying in direction, length, and duties per- 
 formed, would preserve the spirits as well as the 
 health of the recruit, and give him what he so much 
 thirsts for a practical idea of the contingencies of 
 war. 
 
 In addition to tho moral effect of keeping soldiers 
 actively employed, the gymnastic discipline derived 
 from marching each day in different directions from 
 digging, lifting, running, leaping in hardening the 
 muscles and developing the strength of the soldier, is 
 the very best school in which to perfect his attain- 
 
EDUCATION OF RECRUITS. 33 
 
 ments. Nothing but gymnastic exercises made the 
 light-armed Greeks so terrible in battle ; and nothing 
 but similar exercises have made that perfection of 
 all modern soldiers, the French zouave. And, inas- 
 much as these field exercises are the very ones which 
 the soldier is eventually brought to perform in war, 
 he cannot be too well prepared for them during the 
 period of his military pupilage. 
 
 Habits of cleanliness should be particularly in- 
 sisted upon wherever practicable. Soap, towels, and 
 brushes can always be used in barracks, and every 
 morning each man should be made to wash face, 
 neck, arms, and feet in cold water. At roll-call, each 
 corporal should report the state of his squad in this 
 particular, to the officer in command. 
 
 As much of the outside clothing as can be dis- 
 pensed with should be removed at night. This 
 should be insisted upon, and the men, instead of one 
 blanket, should be furnished with two, to compensate 
 for the deficiency in covering thus created. In the 
 field, when the soldier cannot undress, one blanket 
 may be sufficient,* but this one should be of the 
 firmest texture ; and, as a further protection in wet 
 weather, a rubber blanket should be given him. 
 
 Owing to the porous nature of all textile fabrics, 
 and their retention of organic matter in the form of 
 emanations, blankets should be daily aired and ex- 
 
 * The Government furnishes each man with only one blanket, 
 and that often as sleasy, almost, as a bolting-cloth. This crimi- 
 nal neglect of health should be palliated by giving the soldier a 
 rubber blanket in addition, thus keeping him dry, if uot warm. 
 
34: EDUCATION OF BECKUITS. 
 
 posed to the sunlight. If the weather will not admit 
 of its being done out of doors, it should be done in- 
 doors, and in rooms with open fire-places and lighted 
 fires. At least once a week, every well man should 
 be compelled to thoroughly wash himself and change 
 his body clothing. 
 
 The proper ventilation of dormitories at night, 
 and of guard-rooms during the day, must never be 
 overlooked, and recruits should be taught the im- 
 portance of appreciating and enforcing rules for its 
 observance. 
 
 Corporals should also make an inspection of the 
 men when in bed, to see that they are properly un- 
 dressed, that their garments are dry, and that the 
 orders of the medical officer, relating to the wearing 
 of particular articles of clothing, are strictly observed. 
 
 Wherever practicable, daily bathing in summer 
 should be permitted and advised. But it should be 
 done under the eye of an officer, the men being 
 marched down to the bathing ground in squads, and 
 allowed to remain only a few minutes (from 5 to 10) 
 in the water. This length of time is sufficient for 
 all purposes of ablution. But no bathing should on 
 any account be permitted immediately after meals, nor 
 at evening. The habit is a dangerous one in many 
 ways, and should be discountenanced. 
 
 By the various hygienic measures above enumer- 
 ated, when systematized and carried into effect, a 
 corps of young recruits may be so strengthened and 
 hardened as to enable them, after a month's sojourn 
 in barracks, to take the field with very fair chances ; 
 
EDUCATION OF RECRUITS. 35 
 
 whereas, without such gradual breaking in, the new 
 volunteer, passing suddenly from the counting-room 
 to the ranks of an army, is likely to wilt under the 
 first day's march ; to be sickened by the meagreness 
 of his new diet, and to be found in the hospital rather 
 than on the battle-field when the enemy makes his 
 appearance. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 HYGIENE OF BARRACKS. 
 
 BARRACKS, not being castles of defence but simply 
 habitations, should always be constructed with par- 
 ticular reference to hygienic requirements. But, in 
 order to be habitations cf comfort, they must first be 
 habitations of health. No false economy should be 
 permitted to interfere with this most important of all 
 considerations. And it should be remembered also 
 that it is easier to provide for it during the construc- 
 tion of an edifice than by remodelling it afterwards. 
 
 The paramount necessities of all buildings des- 
 tined for dwellings, are a free and constant supply 
 of pure air, and a due exposure to sunlight.* Both 
 these necessities are increased by the number of hu- 
 
 * As an illustration of the importance of sunlight, it is stated 
 that, in the citadel of Ghent, in 1845 and 1846, those companies 
 which lodged in subterranean apartments had twice as many sick 
 as those which lodged above ground. Few persons outside of the 
 medical profession really appreciate the deteriorating influences 
 produced upon the human constitution by depriving it of the 
 vivifying stimulus of sunlight. The very air becomes in some 
 measure deteriorated by its long absence. . 
 
mai 
 
 HYGIENE OF BA3JKACKS. 37 
 
 .an beings inhabiting them ; but the former, at least, 
 is indispensable from the very start. Insufficiency of 
 air and its consequent depravation is not, however, 
 one of those active causes which kill on the spot. 
 But it is the more dangerous, because of the insidious 
 effects produced upon the constitution, and the in- 
 ability to detect them ere serious mischief is done. 
 The general alterations in the system produced by it 
 manifest themselves in the form of chronic glandular 
 degenerations, like scrofula, phthisis, &c., or of such 
 contagious maladies as typhus, variola, purulent oph- 
 thalmia, and dysentery. Statistics have long shown 
 the large proportion of deaths from phthisis and ty- 
 phus obtaining in all armies, and if this be so, then 
 what better cause can be assigned for it, than that of 
 overcrowding and ill ventilation in barracks, huts, and 
 tents 1 
 
 Dry, airy sites, with a proper slope for drainage, 
 and an exposure to sunlight, are the best ones for 
 barracks. They should not, when erected in cities, 
 be placed in densely populated portions, or be sur- 
 rounded by high buildings. 
 
 Whatever the size of the building or material 
 of construction, the walls should be thick, in order to 
 insure perfect dry ness, and windows of sufficient size 
 (the larger the better) should abound on all sides. 
 It is better to have the building with as long a front 
 as possible. If wings are necessary they may be 
 added, but never so as to form a perfect square with 
 an inclosed court-yard, as this latter is in such cases 
 always a nursery of dampness. 
 3 
 
38 HYGIENE OF BARRACKS. 
 
 All mess-rooms, guard-rooms, and dormitories 
 should have an altitude of at least 15 feet, be thor- 
 oughly ventilated, and be situated so as to receive 
 the sunshine during some portion of the day. The 
 walls and ceilings should be plastered and painted, 
 so as to exclude dampness and admit of cleansing. 
 
 The best size for dormitories, consistent with 
 health, is such as will contain from 12 to 14 beds. 
 But the number of occupants in any room should al- 
 ways be so calculated as to afford to each man 400 
 cubic feet of air, with ventilation adequate to supply- 
 ing him with 40 cubic feet of fresh air per hour.* 
 For this purpose, windows must be partially opened 
 at night, and fully during the day, whenever the 
 weather permits. 
 
 The bedstead should be of iron, and single, and the 
 bed should consist of a thick straw pallet and pillow. 
 Sheets are cleanly and should not be dispensed with 
 in barracks. All beds should be turned, and bed- 
 ding aired daily. But when soldiers are preparing 
 
 * In illustration of the dangers which ever attend overcrowd- 
 ing, in even the best-regulated barracks, may be cited the facts 
 observed in the military hospital of Versailles, from 1843 to 1847, 
 where an annual epidemic of typhoid fever was seen to prevail 
 among patients brought from the garrison of St. Cloud. This 
 epidemic declared itself annually a few days after the arrival of 
 the king at the palace of St. Cloud, and disappeared immediately 
 on his departure. Ordinarily the garrison there consisted of from 
 400 to 500 men, but the king's advent increased it to 1,200 ! The 
 troops were consequently overcrowded in all their quarters, and 
 typhoid fever invariably manifested itself. This fact is a signifi- 
 cant commentary upon the deleterious influences that always at- 
 tend upon overcrowded establishments, and will apply to gaols, 
 workhouses, and pauper asylums, as well as to barracks. 
 
for 
 
 HYGIENE OF BABRACKS. 39 
 
 r immediate service in the field, they should be 
 gradually weaned from the use of sheets, and even the 
 straw pallet, and made to rough it on the floor in 
 their blankets, with knapsacks for pillows. 
 
 All wash-rooms, mess-rooms, and guard-rooms 
 should be on the ground floor, and the former should 
 be tiled, with a sloping floor, and a drain running 
 through the centre. Around the w r ash-sinks, wooden 
 gratings should be placed for the men to stand on 
 while performing their ablutions. 
 
 All privies, urinals, and cess-pools should be daily 
 disinfected in the absence of any stream of water 
 running through them.* They should communicate 
 with a subterranean sewer, and be under semi- weekly 
 observation by the medical officer of the post. 
 
 There should be an ante-chamber to the guard- 
 room, with a fire kept burning in it during wet 
 weather, where men coming in from out-door duties 
 may put off and dry their wet outside garments. 
 
 The barrack-yard should be planted with trees as 
 much as practicable. Evergreens (pines in particular) 
 are preferable on the score of health, as well as room. 
 
 No copper or lead vessels should be used in cook- 
 ing, except when tinned, and their condition should 
 be frequently inspected by the medical officer of the 
 post. 
 
 All floors, except those of bed-rooms, should be 
 
 * Among the cheap disinfectants may be mentioned the 
 Chloride and Sulphate of Lime (Gypsum), in powder, and Sul- 
 phate of Iron (Green Copperas), in solution, and Sulphuric and 
 Muriatic Acid Gas. 
 
40 HYGIENE OF BARRACKS. 
 
 daily scrubbed in fine weather, as well as swept. 
 The sweeping must never be omitted ; the scrubbing 
 may be, in wet weather. Floors should be kept 
 painted. Ceilings and walls should be whitewashed 
 as often as once a month. 
 
 The men should not be allowed to wear their 
 shoes to their dormitories, but should leave them in 
 their lockers when they go to bed. 
 
 A urinal should be fixed near the door of each 
 dormitory, and used only at night. 
 
CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 THE MARCH. 
 
 A MILITARY march is one of the most fatiguing of 
 all exercises in walking, and in its effects upon the 
 system must not be judged of by any similar exertion 
 singly undertaken in civil life. It is one thing to 
 walk alone, and as you please, with as little or as 
 much load as you may prefer, with the privilege of 
 resting as often and as long as you please, and of 
 going only as far as inclination prompts ; and it is 
 quite another and a different thing to march in ranks, 
 and always in the same place, keeping step with one 
 before you, treading amid clouds of dust, clad warm- 
 ly, and heavily burthened with accoutrements, unable 
 to stop at the first promptings of fatigue, and com- 
 pelled to accomplish a certain per diem of locomo- 
 tion. Such is a military march. Thus the \\vuk 
 must keep up with the strong, the man of short ' 
 stride with the one of long ; and the very regularity 
 of the step does, when prolonged, tend to make it 
 wearisome and exhausting. 
 
 Another consideration when marching also de- 
 serves to be thought of, and that is the privilege of 
 
42 THE MARCH. 
 
 swinging the arm, which, as a balance to that side of 
 the body opposite the musket, becomes an imperious 
 necessity for comfort. Although forbidden on oc- 
 casions like drills and parades as being ungraceful, 
 the restriction should, in kindness to the soldier, be 
 removed on the march. Wherever it is practicable 
 the men should be allowed to march freely, and with- 
 out the restraint of well-dressed ranks. In this way 
 the march is relieved of much of its harassing char- 
 acter, and becomes a salutary and tonifying exercise. 
 The men are more cheerful, more ambitious, and ca- 
 pable of a higher measure of endurance. The skill of 
 a commander cannot be better shown than in pre- 
 serving the spirits of his troops while causing them 
 to perform long marches. 
 
 One of the pre-requisite conditions to all good 
 marching is the possession of a pair of good feet. 
 The feet in fact are the battle-charger of the infantry- 
 soldier, and serve to carry him through the march 
 and the fray. It becomes important, therefore, that he 
 should keep them in good order. For this purpose, 
 the pattern of all army shoes should present us with 
 a broad sole as the first preventive to cramping 
 the feet ; a stout single-soled shoe made of light kip 
 leather, laced around the ankle, combines all the ele- 
 ments of lightness and durability, protection to the 
 foot, and support to the ankle, which can be desired 
 in any shoe. Over such an article, a gaiter would 
 not be needed, although, if possible, they should be 
 worn, and when so, the shoe would not need to reach 
 so high. 
 
THE MARCH. 43 
 
 In the disposition of a march certain hygienic as 
 well as strategic elements enter. For it is evident 
 that if the character of the march be so imprudently 
 designed as (by excess of length, exposure to storms, 
 roughness of country, and omissions of intervals of rest 
 and refreshment) to fatigue and harass troops, a com- 
 mander will succeed only in breaking down his sol- 
 diers, so that the more he marches, and the nearer he 
 approaches the enemy, the less fit he will be to en- 
 counter him. In an enemy's country it is always 
 better to make short marches, and to keep troops 
 fresh, than to attempt long ones, which only result 
 in swelling the sick list. Fatigue and exhaustion 
 are as destructive to courage, as they are to endur- 
 ance, and when General Debility takes command of 
 an army, the possession of rifled-canrion and Minie 
 balls are of little avail to it. Tonicity of muscular 
 fibre is like dryness to powder ; the more there is 
 of it, the greater the destructive power engendered, 
 while flaccidity on the one hand and dampness on the 
 other, render both these ministers of war absolutely 
 inert. 
 
 Too long, too rapid, or ill-regulated marches, are 
 ever apt to occasion sickness, and to provoke those 
 inevitable results of over-fatigue, complete prostra- 
 tion, and internal congestions. The fact is so often 
 made manifest in the increase of the hospital list, 
 which ever follows upon ill-regulated and fatiguing 
 marches, that it hardly needs repetition. We find 
 in the Archives de Medecine Militaire* the following 
 
 * Tome 9, page 15. 
 
44 THE MARCH. 
 
 incident most strongly illustrative of the point under 
 review. Two brigades arrived at the same depot ; the 
 one had made protracted marches, partly by night ; 
 the other short and slow ones, always by day, and 
 here was the result as furnished by the hospital- 
 record : 
 
 Marching ~by Long Stages Partly by Night. 
 
 2d Regiment had 60 days of sickness. 
 4th " "41 " " 
 
 6th (1st batt'n) 43 " 
 
 Marching "by Short Stages Always ~by Day. 
 
 1st Regiment had 32 days of sickness. 
 6th (2d & 3d bat.) 14 " 
 
 12th Reg't had 19 " 
 3dChass.(foot)" 23 " " 
 
 Thus those who made long marches, and partly 
 by night, lost twice as much time by sickness as those 
 who made short marches and always by day, a sig- 
 nificant commentary upon the hygiene of exercise. 
 
 The hygienic considerations that should regulate 
 a march are those of season, weather, physical charac- 
 ter of country, and condition of troops. The same 
 length of daily march which might be accomplished 
 in winter, could not with safety be gone over in sum- 
 mer ; nor in a rain-storm as on a dry day ; nor in 
 a flat, sandy country, as among hills ; nor with 
 young and raw troops as with veterans. The 
 great object being not simply to transport men a 
 
THE MARCH. 45 
 
 certain distance, so much as to present them upon 
 a certain spot in fighting order, officers will see the 
 propriety of never willingly undertaking forced 
 marches, as the risks of breaking down new troops 
 are too great to be lightly incurred. Particularly is 
 this the case in hot weather, when all the disadvan- 
 tages in dress and weight, under which the soldier 
 labors, render him doubly accessible to fatigue and 
 disease.* In him the excess of heat at the surface 
 generated by prolonged exercise, finds no ready 
 means of escape through his thick clothing. The 
 weight of the knapsack, and the constriction of the 
 chest caused by its cross-belt, greatly impede the 
 function of respiration, and give rise to acute dis- 
 orders of its organs. Pneumonia, pleurisy, bron- 
 chitis, &c., attest the ill effects that flow from these 
 causes. 
 
 When marching under the conditions of a high 
 temperature, the soldier should be allowed to unbutton 
 his coat, and to turn down his collar, the distances be- 
 tween the ranks should be widened]- to twice or even 
 
 * Asphyxia supervening upon extreme fatigue, has been fre- 
 quently noticed in the French army in Africa, particularly during 
 the prevalence of the sirocco. Even mania has followed upon 
 protracted marching; and in General Bugeaud's expedition in 
 1836, eleven suicides were recorded. 
 
 t All who have ever been in a crowd on a hot day, know how 
 suffocating is the atmosphere created by a body of men close 
 together, and radiating about them the corporeal emanations 
 which always accompany even insensible perspiration. But when 
 clothing becomes saturated under such circumstances with visible 
 perspiration, we have here a real human miasma developed, under 
 the combined influences of heat, moisture, and volatilized animal 
 
46 THE MARCH. 
 
 thrice the usual measure, and he should be relieved 
 of all superfluous baggage ; or if that cannot be done, 
 the distances marched should be short,* and gone 
 over early in the day. 
 
 The slow pace (3 miles the hour) is the proper one 
 for all ordinary occasions, as infantry can then keep 
 up with cavalry : besides which the march is easier 
 for all, and there are fewer laggards. At the expira- 
 tion of the first hour a halt of ten minutes will be 
 found of service. 
 
 At the expiration of the second hour a halt of fifteen 
 minutes should be allowed, and the men be permitted 
 to lie down if they choose, unsling knapsacks, unbut- 
 ton coats, but not to remove them, and take off their 
 shoes. Neither should they be allowed to drink im- 
 moderately of cold water from any stream hard by. 
 The canteens should be filled before starting, and suffice 
 until the final halt of the day ; and in order to keep 
 their contents cool, they should be covered with a 
 piece of white cotton cloth kept constantly wet. By 
 dipping the canteen in any water during the halt, and 
 allowing a few minutes evaporation from the cloth to 
 occur, the contained water will be found much low- 
 ered in temperature. Another halt of ten minutes at 
 
 matter. Thirteen inches, the space allowed between the ranks, is 
 not sufficient in hot weather, and on a march. Men should never 
 be so near as to smell each other. 
 
 * All authorities are agreed that when long journeys are to be 
 accomplished, the daily marches should be short. A long one at 
 the beginning has been known to essentially defeat the object of 
 the journey, by breaking down a large number of men, and un- 
 fitting them for active duty. 
 
THE MAECH. 47 
 
 the expiration of the third hour should take place as 
 before. With the fourth hour of march, exclusive of 
 stops, the column will have accomplished from 12 to 
 15 miles according to the step taken. Twelve miles 
 is considered an ordinary day's march in the British 
 army, and fifteen in the French.* Considering the 
 American constitution as being more nearly allied to 
 the British than to the French, we should say that 12 
 miles per diem was the extent to which any large 
 column should be pushed during the summer months. 
 
 Should the exigencies of the service require that 
 a longer march be accomplished, some additional pre- 
 cautionary measures will be necessary. After having 
 marched the usual time of four hours, the column 
 should be halted for a full hour, the men be made to 
 take off stockings, to roll up pantaloons, and to wash 
 their faces, necks, feet, and legs. After which a ration 
 of biscuit and coffee should be served out. By these 
 simple and ever accessible means the men will be 
 sufficiently refreshed to march an hour or two longer 
 without much risk to health. 
 
 When making a halt, the officer in command 
 should avoid deep, sandy cuts, or places where there 
 is not a free .circulation of air. Open ground, some- 
 what sheltered by trees, and near running water, is 
 the better place ; but as all these qualities are not 
 
 * When it is remembered that the soldier on reaching his 
 camping ground cannot at once rest himself, but must prepare 
 his lodgment, procure wood and water, and do an infinity of small 
 duties, not to speak of guard-mounting, it will be seen that 12 
 miles a day is a sufficient march at any ordinary time. 
 
4:8 THE MARCH. 
 
 easily found, the officer will have to exercise his own 
 judgment in all cases relating to choice of localities. 
 
 Young troops should, in marching, be placed in 
 the van of the main body. It will be found that they 
 do not experience so much fatigue in leading, as in 
 following the column ; and in case of a skirmish, they 
 behave better, and are more self-reliant, from the 
 consciousness of having older troops in their rear to 
 support them. The moral effect thus produced upon 
 young soldiers exerts a direct and dynamic influence 
 upon their physical courage ; stimulates them to re- 
 newed efforts, enables them to endure fatigue much 
 better, and makes them strive to win the respect of 
 their older brethren in arms, by sharing in common 
 all their labors. 
 
 SEASON AND WEATHER. The rule of marching 
 with reference to season and weather, should be this, 
 viz. : that in summer the day's march should be ac- 
 complished before noon. The same rule holds good 
 when marches must be made in wet weather, as that 
 enables troops to collect wood for fires during the 
 afternoon ; to provide shelter for the night, and to 
 dry themselves before lying down. As a general 
 thing, however, troops should not be marched, unless 
 the urgency demands it, in wet weather. The damp- 
 ness of so much clothing, much of it already saturated 
 with organic emanations, the heat of so many bodies 
 marching and perspiring in immediate contact, and 
 the subsequent crowding of half-a-dozen wet, reeking 
 men into one tent with every aperture closed, present 
 all the necessary conditions for the development of 
 
THE MAR(JII. 49 
 
 epidemic disease. We must not be surprised under 
 such circumstances, and when the march is continued 
 for many days, to meet with dysentery and typhoid 
 fever. They are the legitimate offspring of such 
 morbific influences. 
 
 CHARACTER OF COUNTRY. It is easier to make 
 long marches in a hilly than in a level, sandy country. 
 The reason is obvious. The muscles used in walking 
 are not rested simply by inaction, but also by variety 
 of action ; and that variety is best obtained -by 
 changes in the configuration of the ground over which 
 we march. Besides which, the mind is more stimu- 
 lated by the variety of scenery afforded it in a hilly 
 country. There is no " weary waste expanding to 
 the skies," around it, to fatigue the eye, and weary 
 the senses with a dull, monotonous sameness. But, 
 on the contrary, every hill-top presents a new vista, 
 and stimulates to fresh exertion. This stimulation, 
 born of a pure, highly oxygenated air, gives elasticity 
 to the spirits, causes the flagging energies to revive, 
 and sends a thrill of ardor through the soldier's heart. 
 It was thus that the view of the plains of Italy from 
 the summits of the Alps fired the hearts of Napoleon's 
 soldiers, and made them forget the fatigues of their 
 hard climbing. 
 
 CONDITION OF TROOPS. In order to accomplish a 
 successful march, troops should be " fresh " at the 
 start. A great battle, or the execution of laborious 
 field-works, should not be immediately followed by a 
 march of those who have taken active parts in these 
 operations. A day's intervening rest and refresh- 
 
50 THE MAECH. 
 
 ment will do much towards recruiting the energies 
 of soldiers who have thus exhausted themselves. For 
 although it may at times be necessary to " push on " 
 immediately after a battle, yet it will generally be 
 found that this can only be done with impunity by 
 victorious troops, buoyed up by the stimulus of high 
 spirits. But that great risk of overtasking men is 
 always run in such cases, none will pretend to deny ; 
 and while it may be justifiable in the defeated to es- 
 cape at any and every hazard to health, the same can- 
 not be pleaded by the victorious. 
 
 Troops should never be marched fasting. A ra- 
 tion of coffee and biscuit, if time admits of nothing 
 else, should always be served to the men before 
 starting in the morning. This is particularly neces- 
 sary in malarious districts, and should never be 
 omitted. The French will often make a morning 
 march on nothing but bread and coffee. Our troops 
 require more ; but without this much at least, they 
 should not be made to march. 
 
 Convalescents should be spared as much as pos- 
 sible on the march. Walking is fatiguing enough for 
 them. Their knapsacks and arms should be placed 
 with the baggage, and they near it. In crossing 
 rivers, every precaution should be employed against 
 their being wetted, as this exposure, added to fatigue, 
 would speedily return them to the hospital. Re- 
 freshments should also be administered to them dur- 
 ing the march, in order to preserve their strength ; 
 and at each halt they should, if possible, be allowed 
 to lie down in the baggage-wagons. Extra covering 
 
THE MARCH. 51 
 
 should be furnished them at night, and they should 
 never sleep without a tent. With these precautions 
 they will be able to follow the march, and even be 
 strengthened by it, so as shortly to resume their 
 places in the ranks. There is not so much danger of 
 malingering among volunteers enlisted for a few 
 months, as among regulars enlisted for several years. 
 Among the former, the desire is rather to push on, 
 than to lag behind. While in the latter, military 
 ardor is apt to become somewhat abated by the feel- 
 ing that several years of service as professional sol- 
 diers still lies before them. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CAMP. 
 
 IT is unnecessary in a hygienic point of view to 
 speak of all the varieties of camps upon which mili- 
 tary authorities dwell. These classifications being 
 purely strategic, have no special application to our 
 subject. We will limit ourselves, therefore, to the 
 two simple divisions of flying and intrenched camps. 
 
 In the FLYING CAMP, which, as its name implies, is 
 to be occupied only for a short period, and where no 
 tents are to be erected, care should be taken to select 
 a spot combining as many of the qualities of dryness 
 of soil, proximity to fresh water, and shelter from 
 winds, as possible. These are the three hygienic ele- 
 ments which should govern officers in the selection 
 of its site. But the short time during which the camp 
 is to be occupied, will not require that the same 
 stringency in hygienic precautions should be enforced 
 as in a permanent camp. Its temporary character 
 relieves it from many of those dangers of epidemic 
 visitation which hover over intrenched camps. Still, 
 
THE CAMP. 53 
 
 from the greater exposure to the weather in it, spo- 
 radic cases of disease will soon appear, if no preven- 
 tive measures are employed. It is the part of wisdom, 
 then, to provide against these, by hedging the troops 
 about with as many safeguards to health as the na- 
 ture of their circumstances admits of. 
 
 In selecting the site of an encampment, all prox- 
 imity to swamps should be avoided, unless some in- 
 tervening rising ground, or a dense belt of woods ex- 
 ists, to arrest the current of miasma which constantly 
 flows from them. Experience seems to show that 
 exposed heights, five and six hundred feet to leeward 
 of swamps, are more susceptible to the influences of 
 their miasma than a level or undulating plain half 
 that distance off.* Whenever, therefore, it becomes 
 necessary to occupy such places, fires should be kin- 
 dled on the windward side, or the men should be 
 made to wear overcoats when mounting guard at 
 night. They should not be exercised fasting, and a 
 more stimulating diet must be given them. 
 
 DRYNESS OF SOIL. This is not simply essential, 
 but also indispensable, to the health of troops. Men 
 cannot sleep nor even lie with impunity upon damp 
 ground. Their beds, whether it be earth or board, 
 must be dry, so must their blankets. Double safety 
 would undoubtedly be secured by an india-rubber 
 blanket, which neither gets wet, nor allo\vs the 
 dampness of the earth to penetrate it. Hemlock or 
 pine boughs make good enough beds ; but even if no 
 contact of the person with the damp earth occurs, the 
 
 * Dr. Jackson " On Armies." 
 
54: THE CAMP. 
 
 emanations from such a soil, particularly in hot 
 weather, cannot be otherwise than deleterious. 
 
 Wherever it is permissible, fires should be lighted 
 and kept burning all night on the windward side of 
 the camp. They serve, in some degree, to purify the 
 air, (Est in ipsis ignibus medica vis. Pliny,) but, 
 more than all, to temper it. In musquito-breeding 
 or malarious regions, they will be found particularly 
 serviceable. 
 
 SHELTER FROM WINDS. This is an important con- 
 sideration in the selection of a spot for a flying camp, 
 especially when the troops have been exposed to the 
 wet during the day, or the weather be cold. Winds 
 passing over damp clothing, rapidly lower the tem- 
 perature of the surface of the body, and dispose to 
 inflammatory disorders. It is important to guard 
 against this source of danger by a natural shelter, as 
 well as by fires. 
 
 In the INTRENCHED CAMP, which is designed to be 
 a more permanent habitation for troops, other and 
 stricter rules of hygiene must be enforced. In the 
 selection of its site, and wherever practicable, the 
 same considerations as to dryness of soil and prox- 
 imity to fresh water should obtain. Providing the 
 soil be not argillaceous, the presence of some moisture 
 (springiness) is no cause for apprehension ; but the 
 locality of the camp should always be such as to ad- 
 mit of complete surface drainage either by direct 
 flowage or by percolation. The result of all obser- 
 vation shows that a light, sandy soil, bordering on 
 the banks of a wooded stream, affords the healthiest 
 
THE CAMP. 55 
 
 of all camping-grounds; and in selecting such a site, 
 the medical staff should always be consulted. 
 
 The first hygienic requirement in a camp, as in a 
 city, is that its population shall not be overcrowded 
 in its various lodging-places. To prevent this, wher- 
 ever tents are used, they should be capacious enough 
 to afford each occupant, at the very least, 108 cubic 
 (6x6x3) feet of air, with a renewal of 40 cubic feet 
 per hour. The English " Bell " tent with a diameter 
 of 13 ft. 8, and an altitude of ten feet, affords to each 
 one of its occupants 146 cubic feet. The Portsmouth 
 hut, which is much larger, and affords room for 25 
 men, gives to each the same amount (146 feet) of 
 breathing space. Yet large as this seems to be, there 
 is good reason to believe that it is still insufficient 
 in stormy weather, when necessity requires an almost 
 entire closing of the tent. To obviate the risks to 
 health from this practice, they should be made with 
 only partial sides (drops) to be used in slantwise 
 rains, or fewer men should be assigned to their occu- 
 pancy. Without some such precautions, tents are 
 apt to become foul to a degree scarcely credible, and 
 in this way to afford nurseries for the generation of 
 epidemic diseases. Authorities differ greatly in their 
 various estimates of the value of tents as hygienic 
 auxiliaries ; and certainly, without a more rigid san- 
 itary surveillance than has heretofore been enforced 
 in -camps, the evils directly traceable to them have 
 not been unduly magnified. But the same might, 
 with equal justice, be said of tenant-houses; an<l vet 
 the poor must be housed, even at the expense of 
 
56 THE CAMP. 
 
 health. We imagine the fault does not so much lie 
 in the tent itself as in the mode in which it is occu- 
 pied, and the want of due ventilation and the negli- 
 gence in cleanliness among its occupants. When 
 these two objections are removed, we can find noth- 
 ing in the structure itself to condemn. 
 
 Still, it is an undoubted fact that the contact of 
 many warm bodies with the hum id earth, as in a 
 tent, by first raising the temperature of the contained 
 atmosphere, and causing an ascent of moisture satur- 
 ated with organic emanations, produces the best 
 conditions for the development of disease. And 
 those diseases, by the very asthenic and typhoid 
 types which they assume, clearly enough indicate the 
 sources of their origin. The camp dysenteries of the 
 Crimea were most generally of this type, even as all 
 fevers become modified by the medium in which they 
 have been developed, independent of any ingenerate 
 character of their own. The daily observation of 
 such facts as these, multiplied and reduplicated in 
 the hospital records of all armies in modern times, 
 should make us blush with indignation at that stupid 
 apathy which has so long permitted preventible di- 
 sease to decimate the flower of every army. 
 
 The late Dr. Jackson, surgeon-general to the 
 British army, was of opinion that tents were not es- 
 sential to health ; and certainly as formerly managed, 
 they were among its greatest enemies. He gave the 
 preference to huts, alleging their superiority on the 
 point of cleanliness and ventilation, and even assert- 
 ed that men could do well without either. We are 
 
THE CAMP. 57 
 
 not prepared to say as much as that, believing as we 
 do in the superiority of a well-ordered tent over all 
 other kinds of shelter. But for safety's sake it should 
 only have partial sides, not close walls, a trench dug 
 completely around it to > receive and lead away the 
 rain ; and not less than four feet should intervene be- 
 tween the stakes of each tent. 
 
 Every occupied tent, at night, should have a large 
 portion of its doorway, or during a storm some 
 other aperture on the leeward side, open, for pur- 
 poses of ventilation. The corporals of each guard in 
 making their rounds should see to . the enforcement 
 of this rule, also that the men do not smoke in the 
 tent. It would also be well, were it possible, to in- 
 sist upon the men's blankets being inspected at night 
 to see that they are not wet when used as coverings. 
 And when the guard is relieved in rainy weather, and 
 before a soldier retires to his quarters he should, if 
 he has used his blanket, be given a dry one in ex- 
 change, in which to. sleep. 
 
 The floor of each tent should be covered with an 
 india-rubber, or painted canvas cloth, which should 
 form part of the camp-equipage just as much as the 
 tent itself. In this day of meridional civilization, it 
 is unjustifiable to omit any thing which can protect 
 troops from the risk of sleeping on damp, cold 
 ground. Tents must have flo'ors ; wood is cheap, 
 but bulky to transport, and, besides, becomes satur- 
 ated with organic emanations. India-rubber, on the 
 contrary, is cheap, light, and always clean. 
 
 To each twenty men there should be allowed a 
 
58 THE CAMP. 
 
 night-bucket with a cover, to serve as a urinal, and 
 to be used only at night. This is cleanlier than to 
 allow men to ease themselves on the ground in the 
 vicinity of the tents, (as the soil soon becomes foul 
 and offensive,) while, at the same time, it relieves 
 them from the necessity of going to the privies at the 
 extreme rear of the regiment in wet and stormy 
 weather. 
 
 The regimental privies or sinks should be en- 
 circled by bushes, and every evening a portion of 
 the earth dug out of them should be thrown in. A 
 special privy should be allotted to the dejections com- 
 ing from hospital patients ; and this should, when 
 much sickness prevails, be daily disinfected. 
 
 Every tent should be thoroughly aired daily ; 
 and all straw, hay, or other bedding contained in it 
 should, on every fair day, be taken out, and aired in 
 the sun. But whenever the same becomes mouldy 
 or offensive by age, it must be thrown away. The 
 blankets of the men should also be daily aired and 
 sunned. 
 
 Once a week they should be made to wash them- 
 selves and change their body clothing, and an oppor- 
 tunity be also given them to wash their soiled clothes. 
 Kegular wash-days, for this purpose, when practicable 
 should be appointed, in order to avoid the accumula- 
 tion of soiled clothing in the tents. 
 
 At least twice in every week, the surgeon or his 
 assistant should make a sanitary inspection of all 
 the tents, kitchens, and sinks throughout the camp. 
 Each company should detail two corporals to attend 
 
THE CAMP. 59 
 
 him in the inspection of its own tents. Neither the 
 day nor the hour of the inspection should be an- 
 nounced beforehand. 
 
 The medical officer, at the same time, should in- 
 spect all provisions in actual use ; the barrels, boxes, 
 pots, or cans in which they are kept ; and the power 
 should be given him to order any thing to be de- 
 stroyed with whose sanitary condition he is dissatis- 
 fied. 
 
 GUARD-MOVNTING. As sleep is among the most 
 indispensable of our necessities, so its loss is fol- 
 lowed by a degree of lassitude and discomfort 
 amounting in many to actual suffering. Although 
 all do not immediately experience the same ill effects 
 from its loss, yet practically the effect is in the end 
 the same, whenever the absence of sleep is protracted. 
 The young and the weakly succumb first, the mature 
 and the healthy follow them also at no inconsiderable 
 interval of time. Superadded to the fatigues of the 
 day, the duty of mounting guard is, among young 
 troops, the severest task which can be imposed upon 
 them. Nothing, in fact, will sooner destroy the 
 health of youth than privation of a due amount of 
 sleep ; and it is on this account that it becomes im- 
 portant to allot the duty of guard-mounting to those 
 who can stand it best. 
 
 As a hygienic rule founded in a strict economy 
 of strength, the youngest troops (from 18 to 21) 
 should not be put on guard at night after a march, 
 or battle, although they may, when a regiment is 
 permanently encamped. But in any event, the first 
 
60 THE CAMP. 
 
 hours of the night should not be assigned to them. 
 The mature of age are more wakeful during the early 
 part of night, while the young are more disposed to 
 sleep. Hence the young should be put on duty dur- 
 ing the last watches of the night, and when they 
 have already received all needed benefit from sleep. 
 The older men will, in like manner, receive their 
 measure of rest at the time when nature most 
 prompts them to seek it, so that by thus following 
 the dictates of natural appetites the health of al] 
 classes may be preserved. 
 
 Sleep is, indeed, such an imperative necessity 
 with the young, that to rob them of it is to strike 
 the most cruel blow at their physical vigor. The 
 loss of a meal, or a long march, will not produce such 
 depressing effects upon their health as the loss of 
 one night's sleep. And the nervous energy being 
 thus lowered in tone, the system becomes readily 
 accessible to the seeds of any endemic or epidemic 
 malady. It is rendered more sensitive to the im- 
 pressions of cold, to the influence of malaria, and, in 
 fact, to all extraneous circumstances. Timely circum- 
 spection on the part of officers is needed here, to pre- 
 vent injuring troops, which, surrounded by all other 
 hygienic conditions, may yet, through a negligent 
 disregard of the proper allotment of sleep necessary 
 to meet the requirements of different ages, be debili- 
 tated and unfitted for the successful performance of 
 their duties in the field. 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE FOOD. 
 
 THE diet of the soldier plays an important part 
 in the economy of his military life. For, in contra- 
 distinction to the civilian, it is not sufficient that his 
 food should simply sustain life, but it should also 
 be possessed of such qualities as to develop in him 
 a high degree oi* animal spirits. It should give vigor 
 to his health through appropriate stimulating virtues, 
 and leave behind a measure of positive strength due 
 to its inherent tonic properties. All have observed 
 the diversities which national character assumes un- 
 der varieties of diet. The difference between the 
 meat and wheat-fed European, and the rice-fed Hin- 
 doo ; the maize-fed Mexican, and the fish and yam- 
 fed South Sea Islander, in all the qualities of intellec- 
 tuality, strength of body, and persevering energy and 
 endurance, is too marked to have escaped notice. It 
 may be stated as a universal rule, that the conquer- 
 ing races of the earth have always been the best fed 
 races, not indeed in the sense of luxurious indulgence, 
 but in the possession and use of those aliments which 
 4 
 
62 THE FOOD. 
 
 impress upon the system a vigorous tone, and thus 
 develop physical courage. The same rule also ob- 
 tains among animals. The high bred hunter, the 
 racehorse, or the roadster, all attest through the 
 manner in which they do their appointed work, the 
 tonifying quality of their diet. 
 
 All these truisms point directly to the necessity 
 of making the soldier's dietary an important part of 
 the discipline of an army, as well as of its hygiene. 
 In an economic point of view, it may be said that a 
 weak soldier is no soldier, costing the state more to 
 support him than his services are worth. True wis- 
 dom, and true economy, therefore, lies in furnishing 
 him with such qualities of aliment as will keep his 
 physical energies always at par. His life is peculiarly 
 exposed to incessant causes of debility and to attacks 
 of disease. He is suddenly translated from civic life, 
 with its regular, generally controllable duties, to a 
 military life with its fatiguing drills, marches, guard- 
 mountings, irregularities in times of occupation and 
 eating, overcrowding in tents and barracks, exposure 
 to heat and moisture, and vicissitudes of climate, all 
 of which none will certainly pretend to say are cal- 
 culated to strengthen, so much as they are to shock, 
 and to enfeeble the system. Such an individual of 
 all others, needs a tonic and recuperating diet, and 
 unless he finds it, very soon takes his place in a 
 hospital ward with broken health. It is far cheaper 
 to feed him well in the field than to nurse him in the 
 hospital. 
 
 In order, therefore, to be serviceable to the state, 
 
THE FOOD. 63 
 
 soldiers must be fed well. In order to enable 
 them to bear the fatigues of marching, to breast the 
 vicissitudes of weather, and to encounter, unaffected, 
 the changes of climate, their bodies must be nourished 
 with particular reference to developing a high mus- 
 cular tone. Experience has shown that a mixed diet, 
 in which animal food preponderates, is that most con- 
 ducive to this result. Consequently it is to such a 
 form of diet that we must look for maintaining the 
 health and utility of an army. Nothing is more true 
 than that good food is as much a munition of war as 
 good powder. 
 
 On examining the bill of rations of our army, 
 two important facts strike us at the outset. The first 
 is the narrow range of the dietary, amounting in its 
 monotonous uniformity almost to exclusivism, and 
 second its too often unseasonable character. Now, in 
 these days of easy transportation, there is clearly no 
 justification on the plea of economy for either, while 
 science and experience conspire to condemn both as 
 the fruitful sources of mischief to health. There is 
 an instinctive craving for variety of food in all or- 
 ganisms, and however good any single article may in 
 itself be, its continued and exclusive use for any 
 length of time is sure to inspire disgust, and conse- 
 quently to impair its nutritive character. In such 
 cases men may be filled with it, and yet not fed by 
 it, because nutrition depends upon assimilation, and 
 assimilation upon that tone of the digestive canal 
 which manifests itself through taste and relish. What 
 we cease to relish we are neither apt to assimilate, 
 
64: THE FOOD. 
 
 nor to be nourished by. The very craving for va- 
 riety in food is thus made an index of the necessity of 
 a change in its character to our organism. 
 
 Again, we may have, relatively speaking, a strong 
 diet at any period of the year, but in order also to be 
 a healthy one, it must conform itself in a measure to 
 the requirements of the season. Hence, in an army, 
 every thing, whether labor, food, or clothing, should 
 be regulated first of all by the necessities of the sea- 
 son. And inasmuch as most campaigns, or active 
 operations in the field, take place in summer, and 
 may, besides, extend into hot climates, the soldier's 
 dietary should be so arranged as to enable him not only 
 to meet the exigencies of his own laborious calling, 
 but also to resist the constitutional influences of a de- 
 bilitating season. The object should be to have each 
 article nutritious, without at the same time inducing 
 any predisposition to diseases of the season. In a 
 word, the dietary should be both alimentary and cor- 
 rective. 
 
 A diet consisting simply of flesh and cereals, al- 
 though eminently nourishing, could not be endured 
 throughout the summer with impunity. And if that 
 flesh were salted, it would greatly increase the tend- 
 ency to disease. The proximate principles of or- 
 ganic matter must always be present, but they should 
 change their proportions and relative position in the 
 scale of our rations to meet climatic variations. As 
 now established, the soldier's fare is a true winter 
 diet, and rich in elements well suited to meet the re- 
 quirements of respiration, under a low temperature. 
 
THE FOOD. 65 
 
 In summer, on the contrary, the excess of carbon fur- 
 nished by it to the lungs beyond what they can dis- 
 pose of, imposes additional duties of elimination upon 
 the liver, and tends unduly to excite this organ. A 
 predisposition to biliary disorders is consequently 
 engendered. 
 
 In order to counteract the ill effects of so alkales- 
 cent a diet in summer, recourse must be had to fruits 
 and vegetable acids. These, with spices, are nature's 
 own correctives. Both, also admitting of preservation, 
 should be regularly included among army supplies. 
 By a proper disposition of his diet, man lives as 
 healthfully under the equator as under the pole. The 
 East Indian with his rice and yams, and the Esqui- 
 matfx with his seal-blubber and putrid fish, are both 
 healthy enough in their respective climates, but let 
 them once change residences without changing their 
 diet, and what would be the consequence ? The Es- 
 quimaux would be attacked with putrid fever, and the 
 West Indian would die of inanition. 
 
 We perceive from this the absolute necessity of 
 modifying all forms of diet in such a way as to ac- 
 commodate them to the physiological requirements 
 of varying seasons. For habit is not acquirable 
 as against the laws of chemical combination, and no 
 man can become habituated to doing that with im- 
 punity, which, being a violation of the physiological 
 laws of his system, is, by its frequent admonitions of 
 pain, notifying him of the evil about to overtake him. 
 
 As the ration bill now stands, it presents us 
 with too concentrated a form of diet for continued 
 
66 THE FOOD. 
 
 use. It abounds in ftbrine, gluten, and fat, without, 
 however, a sufficiency in starch, mucilage, gelatin, and 
 acids. Aromatic herbs and spices, without which 
 health cannot for any length of time be preserved, 
 particularly in hot climates or seasons, are entirely 
 omitted, while fat pork, an article contra-indicated in 
 summer both by the state of the appetite and the 
 physiological necessities of the system, stands as the 
 sheet anchor of its animal food. Lean hams, shoul- 
 ders and sides, or jerked beef, should be substituted 
 in its stead. In the arrangement of the summer diet- 
 ary, it should be remembered that animal fats must 
 take a subordinate rank, and starchy food, esculent 
 roots, aromatics, and vegetable acids be allowed to pre- 
 ponderate. 
 
 It is not from the quantity of food digested, so 
 much as by the power of assimilating it, that man- 
 kind are nourished. A pound and a half of pork or 
 beef per day would sicken and debilitate the Arab 
 whose handful of dates enables him, between sun and 
 sun, to perform fatiguing exercises ; while the same 
 amount of flesh would hardly suffice to keep alive an 
 Esquimaux bantling. The reason for this difference 
 rests solely in the function of assimilation, a function 
 which is of all others the most speedily affected and 
 deranged by too exclusive and concentrated a diet. 
 The story of the peasant w r ho broke his thigh, and 
 while in the hospital fell into a complete marasmus 
 when fed on beef-tea, custards, rice-milk and wine, 
 and only recovered when restored to his original diet 
 of black bread, greens, fish, and oil, is a pointed illus- 
 
THE FOOD. 67 
 
 tration of the innutritions effects of too nutritious a 
 dietary long persisted in. 
 
 Now, because soldiers have hard work to do, we 
 must not imagine that all they require in food is 
 simply what chemists have ascertained to be nutritive 
 reparative qualities. They cannot be fed like steam- 
 engines, by just so many pounds of this or that kind 
 of fuel daily and unvaryingly administered. A man 
 losing 2 or 3 pounds in weight by perspiration to- 
 day, could not be restored to-night by simply gorg- 
 ing him with a like weight of beef, pork, or bread. 
 In the presence of vital forces, the conduct of organic 
 functions cannot be regulated by chemical formulae 
 born of the laboratory. No narrow methodism is 
 tolerable here. We must follow experience alone ; 
 and experience everywhere shows that in the healthy 
 health is alone to be preserved by a liberal, mixed 
 diet. If we would preserve the health of our troops 
 we must amplify the range of their dietary. It may 
 cost a little more, and but a little more, yet that little 
 is an hundred per cent, less than the cost of nursing 
 a sick man, paying him wages besides, and over all, 
 losing the benefit of his presence on the battle-field. 
 We fancy that no economist would be long in deter- 
 mining which measure of the two is cheapest in the 
 end. 
 
 Experience having demonstrated that no single 
 substance, be it animal or vegetable, when exclusively 
 indulged in for any length of time, can support the 
 human body in health, but that the continuous use of 
 the same food produces debility of the digestive ap- 
 
03 THE FOOD. 
 
 paratus, satiety, and consequent faulty nutrition, it 
 becomes indispensable to the health of soldiers that 
 each meal should be composed of a due admixture of 
 animal and vegetable substances, and further that the 
 dietary should be so arranged as to avoid repetition 
 and sameness in the articles daily used. 
 
 It is also established that, in order to maintain 
 healthy digestion, all alimentary substances should 
 occasionally be accompanied by condiments of a sa- 
 line, spicy, or aromatic and acid character. Salt, 
 pepper, and the aromatic principles of certain vege- 
 tables like onions, parsley, thyme, and garlick ; the 
 spices proper, cloves, gingel*, &c., or the vegetable 
 acids, sorrel, vinegar, &c., .when taken in concert with 
 our food, tend to promote its more perfect elabora- 
 tion, or to correct a disposition to fermentation and 
 putrescency. 
 
 In a country blessed with plenty like our own, 
 with means of transportation at every door, and where 
 almost every village sends its company of volunteers, 
 it is not difficult to provide a dietary like that which 
 follows. The articles superadded to the regular 
 army rations could be easily made up for each com- 
 pany in its own home, and forwarded to its quarters 
 in the field. Thus barrels of apples, potatoes, onions 
 and carrots, where troops are at a depot, might easily 
 be sent them. It is understood that the Government 
 makes no objection to their transmission, and nothing 
 but willingness is therefore wanted on the part of 
 patriotic committees at home. 
 
 In alimentary rank animal food must take pre- 
 
THE FOOD. 
 
 cedence of all other kinds. Next to this come bread 
 and farinaceous articles, and lastly esculent roots and 
 spices. The order of their disposition in any dietary 
 should be nearly as follows : 
 
 FOR A WINTER DIET. 
 
 Pork, 3 days in a week. 
 Beef,* 3 days in a week. 
 Mutton, or Salt Fish, 1 day in 
 
 a week. 
 
 Flour,f Wheat and Indian. 
 Beans, 2 days in a week. 
 Potatoes, 2 days in a week. 
 Esculent Roots, Pickled Cab- 
 
 bage, and dried Fruits, 
 
 3 times a week. 
 Coffee, twice daily. 
 Sugar Spices. 
 
 FOR A SUMMER DIET. 
 
 Beef, 3 days. 
 
 Mutton, 3 days. 
 
 Pork, or Salt Fish, 1 day. 
 
 Flour. 
 
 Beans or Barley, 1 day. 
 Rice, 3 days. 
 
 Dried or fresh Fruits, or Pickled 
 Cabbage, 3 days. 
 
 Coffee, twice daily. 
 Sugar Spices. 
 
 With regard to quality, it may be said that fresh 
 meats are always more nourishing than salt, dried, or 
 
 * The cheapness of beef in our country renders it unnecessary 
 that I should say aught on the subject of horse-flesh, now so much 
 in vogue in some parts of Europe. It is unquestionably proved 
 to be highly palatable, nutritious, and in nowise inferior to beef 
 as an article of alimentation. Philosophers have fed upon it, and 
 detailed with rapture its good qualities, and one of them, Geoffrey 
 de St. Hilaire, has consecrated its merits in a volume of consider- 
 able size. 
 
 f It is more economical, as well as healthy, 'to feed soldiers on 
 stale, rather than on fresh bread. Less of the farmer is apt to be 
 eaten, and less suffices to nourish them. By stale is to be under- 
 stood bread which has been out of the oven, and exposed to the 
 air at least 24 hours. 
 
 It would be better also if the bread could be made of wheat- 
 middlings, instead of fine flour, as a large percentage of nutritive 
 matter (gluten) is removed with the husk in the process of bolting. 
 Indian meal should also be occasionally mixed with fine flour in 
 
70 THE FOOD. 
 
 smoked, which latter are also more indigestible. 
 That the flesh of grown animals exceeds in nutritive 
 value that of the young, and that moderately fat 
 meats are the best of all. 
 
 With regard to vegetables and fruits the same 
 rules apply, to a certain extent. Fresh vegetables are 
 always preferable to dry or preserved ones. Fari- 
 naceous vegetables like potatoes, beans, and peas, 
 are more nourishing than roots and grasses, such as 
 cabbage, spinage, &c. Nevertheless, the system oc- 
 casionally requires such articles as cabbages, turnips, 
 onions, carrots, &c., and their peculiarly corrective 
 qualities are called for to mitigate the scorbutic ten- 
 dencies of too exclusive a diet of salt meat.* The acid 
 fruits, like dried apples and peaches, when fresh ones 
 cannot be obtained, should find a regular place in the 
 
 making bread. The popular aversion to dark-colored bread, 
 founded on the supposition of its lesser amount of nourishment, 
 is a gross error. The best soldiers in the world are fed on dark- 
 colored bread. 
 
 The importance of good bread to health is so universally 
 recognized that I have deemed it unnecessary to say aught upon 
 the subject. There are frequent enough complaints about the 
 quality of the beef issued to troops, but I imagine that there is 
 full as much dereliction in the matter of bread. Now, certainly, 
 there can be no excuse for either, although, of the two, I entertain 
 no doubt that bad bread works more silent mischief than bad 
 beef. And if this be so, it becomes the duty of medical officers to 
 provide some remedy, in the form of instruction to cooks on the 
 philosophy of bread-making. 
 
 * The virtues of saur-lcraut as an anti-scorbutic are well known, 
 and although its smell (due to the presence of valerianic acid) is 
 undoubtedly unpleasant, it deserves, in a sanitary point of view, 
 a place in our army dietary as a condiment of much value. 
 
THE FOOD. 71 
 
 soldier's dietary. Vinegar, as with salt and pepper, 
 should never be wanting. Nor should the aromatic 
 spices, cloves, ginger, and cinnamon be overlooked. 
 They play an important and hygienic part in the 
 domestic economy of the camp, and should not be 
 restricted to the medicine chest of the surgeon. 
 
 But the virtue of food, however good, may all be 
 destroyed by bad cooking. And this time-honored 
 observation has led to the belief among many that 
 while the Spirit of Goodness sends the food, the Spirit 
 of Evil sends the cook ! Be this as it may, the man- 
 ner of preparing the food of soldiers is one of the 
 most important of considerations, and as such de- 
 serves notice in this connection. 
 
 The French, who have systematized every thing 
 down to the nicety of a mathematical proposition, in- 
 sist in their army dietaries that the best possible 
 preparation of animal food is in the form of soups. 
 Roasts and stews with them only claim a secondary 
 position. But in their field soups besides meat there 
 are always vegetables introduced. We have then 
 what New-Englanders call a boiled dinner. As a 
 general rule it may be said that when soup is prop- 
 erly made, it furnishes us with all the nutritive ele- 
 ments of both flesh and vegetables contained in it. It 
 presents to us animal juices in a state of solution, to- 
 gether with the mucilage of vegetables, and the sapid 
 principles of both. But this highly concentrated form 
 of nourishment should be qualified by consuming the 
 now almost innutritions flesh and vegetables with 
 which it has been made. We need the bouilli, or the 
 
72 THE FOOD. 
 
 woody fibre of the vegetable after partaking of the soup, 
 because we need bulk as well as nourishment in our 
 food. The intestinal canal must be distended as well 
 as stimulated. Bread, also, should be eaten with it. 
 
 In making soups, good cooks say that the meat 
 should be put into cold water, in quantity sufficient 
 to be reduced one-third by boiling. The water should 
 not at any time boil violently, but simmer, for from 
 4 to 5 hours, and no more must ever be added after 
 the soup has begun to boil. Vegetables should be 
 introduced for two purposes, viz. : to increase the 
 nutritive qualities of the soup, and to flavor it. A 
 knowledge of this fact will enable the mess-cooks to 
 regulate suitably their proportions. Baked meats 
 are more economical than broiled, or those roasted in 
 the open air, both which lose by these last-named 
 processes some of their nutritive qualities. All stews 
 made of beef, mutton, or pork should be accompanied 
 by appropriate vegetables and condiments. 
 
 Whenever practicable, fresh fruits should be al- 
 lowed the men, in lieu of vegetables, but never in lieu 
 of animal food. 
 
 As to beverages, coffee being a regulation-drink, 
 and like water always to be had, nothing need be said 
 on that score ; but there are others which, under cer- 
 tain circumstances, are called for as a hygienic safe- 
 guard. 
 
 EDUCATED COOKS. 
 
 It is somewhat singular that, although the impor- 
 tance of good food to health is everywhere acknowl- 
 

 THE FOOD. 73 
 
 edged, and the evils consequent upon ill-cooking are 
 everywhere deplored, no means are yet adopted to 
 remedy the latter by providing a corps of scientific 
 cooks for our armies. The anathemas so constantly 
 launched against the commissariat department for not 
 providing the raw materials of good quality, might 
 with great justice be distributed, in perhaps the larg- 
 est measure, over the department of kitchen and cooks. 
 Administrative vigilance limits its efforts to furnMi- 
 ing a due quantity of supplies, generally of an in. 
 different quality, and there rests. How the food is 
 cooked, or whether it be cooked at all, is apparently 
 a matter of perfect indifference to all in authority. 
 The inconsistency manifested by such conduct is little 
 short of criminal, for it is in every sense a neglect 
 of one of the most efficient means for preserving the 
 health of armies. In any other of the details of mili- 
 tary service no similar degree of negligence would be 
 tolerated. Were so many hundred pounds of powder 
 to be issued to make so many thousand cartridges, 
 no commander would rest satisfied with the report 
 that the powder was dry, and of good quality ; but 
 he would insist upon knowing who were to make the 
 cartridges whether the workmen had the necessary 
 tools given them, and whether they possessed the 
 requisite skill. He certainly would not allow the 
 unlearned to take part in the operation, except under 
 the eye and direction of competent instructors. 
 
 Now some similar degree of vigilance is precisely 
 what is needed in the culinary department of armies. 
 We need, and we must have educated army cooks, in 
 5 
 
fat THE FOOD. 
 
 order to prevent disease, waste of food, and to extract 
 the best possible good from it. Soldiers must be fed 
 and nourished, as well as filled and distended by their 
 rations. They are not anacondas, or ostriches, whose 
 digestive organs can dispose of any thing that may 
 be presented to their action. t Hence boggy-bread, and 
 leathery beans have killed more troops than bullets, 
 and they will continue to do so, until some radical 
 reform is introduced into regimental kitchens. It is 
 idle to seek for probable causes of disease, in air, 
 water, or earth, outside the camp, when so permanent 
 and manifest a cause is assiduously at work within. 
 The work of purification and prevention must begin 
 here. The kitchen must be ennobled into an institu- 
 tion of science of systematized intelligence, and of 
 skilful adaptation of means to ends. In fact, cooks 
 must be honored by an education in the chemistry of 
 their own specialty. They should be taught the 
 how and the wherefore of their art, and be elevated 
 above the ignoble craft of scullions by a course of 
 training calculated to win respect for them in the eyes 
 of others. 
 
 Every company should have one educated cook, 
 whose duty it should be to attend to nothing but the 
 kitchen. He should be considered a non-combatant, 
 and always retained as such. An assistant should be 
 given him, but the cook alone should be responsible 
 for the good dressing of the food. 
 
 Some such regulations as these would, if enforced, 
 insure to each regiment a body of disciplined cooks 
 calculated to promote in a very high degree the com- 
 
THE FOOD. 75 
 
 fort of the men, and to preserve their health, by pro- 
 tecting them from the evil and insidious influences of 
 bad cooking. And when the good results which may 
 be thus secured at so cheap a cost are considered, it 
 would seem as though it were only necessary to point 
 them out in order to have instant measures taken to 
 obtain them. It is certainly time that something 
 were done in the matter. Humanity, no less than 
 economy, is interested in the subject; for inexorable 
 facts show that -the dietary of troops is one of the 
 chief avenues through which disease assails them, and 
 that dietary, as all know, depends for its influence 
 upon health, almost as much upon the mode in which 
 it is prepared, as upon original qualities. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CLOTHING. 
 
 THE clothing of soldiers, until recently, has never 
 received that attention which its great importance 
 deserves. The idea of its character, which obtained 
 up to the middle almost of the present century, was 
 evidently an inheritance of the past, and transmit- 
 ted to us along with the legends of Wellington and 
 Napoleon. A soldier, in those days, was a man in 
 " brass and buckram " of formidable aspect, truly, 
 but set in so thick a harness of padded cloth and 
 leather, and so encumbered by the weight of arms, 
 and of his clothing, as to labor under every possible 
 disadvantage in a fight. Constrained in every effort 
 by the style of his clothes, and oppressed on all sides 
 by the unrelenting burthen which they and his arms 
 imposed upon him, he could never be considered 
 otherwise than an oppressed and fatigued man. 
 Every thing in his equipment seemed calculated to 
 obstruct freedom of motion and to impair his ability 
 of performing muscular exertion. It seemed singu- 
 lar, indeed, that men whose duties called for the 
 

 THE CLOTHING. 77 
 
 greatest agility, whose lives and whose successes de- 
 pended upon the free use of every muscle, should by 
 positive enactment be encased in a harness calculated 
 to interfere with every extensive motion. 
 
 The terrible realization of this error was never 
 forced upon European commanders until the French 
 undertook the conquest of Algeria. There, the mani- 
 fest advantage of lightly clad and armed troops over 
 heavy ones was found to compensate almost for the 
 deficiency in their military skill and discipline. Not 
 alone on account of the climate, but also to remove 
 every obstacle to agility which the French at once 
 perceived was the strong point of all Arabic effec- 
 tiveness, they proceeded to modify the dress of their 
 army. An entire change of costume was the conse- 
 quence of this observation. Every thing heavy and 
 constraining, or impeding in any way the free move- 
 ment of any muscle in either arm or leg, neck, shoul- 
 der, or back, was discarded. Loose pantaloons, and 
 jackets, small collars, or none, light kepis instead of 
 heavy shakos, shoes in the place of boots, lighter 
 rifles and muskets, took the place of the former heavy 
 arms and accoutrements. 
 
 The world now recognizes the wisdom of this 
 change, and is everywhere hastening to adopt it. 
 Heavy, tight uniforms are giving place to light ones. 
 The idea that either warmth or durability are de- 
 pendent upon weight is exploded. We have, at last, 
 made our exodus from this vestamental Jericho. 
 
 The first necessity of all dress is warmth, next to 
 that, lightness. These two conditions are best ful- 
 
78 THE CLOTHING. 
 
 filled by woollen fabrics. Both the under and the 
 outer garments of the soldier, therefore, should con- 
 sist of this material. It is not necessary here to 
 speak of the advantages of woollen over either cotton 
 or linen. The world decided that ages ago. 
 
 UNDER GARMENTS. 
 / 
 
 Both in summer and in winter, in the tropics and 
 under the pole, wearing flannel next to the skin has 
 been found a protection to health. And except in 
 extraordinary cases, arid where some cutaneous idio- 
 syncrasy forbids its use, troops should be made to 
 wear it night and day. Where a whole waistcoat 
 cannot be endured, a flannel apron, or bandage, cover- 
 ing the abdomen and loins, should be worn in like 
 mariner. Incipient diarrhreas and dysenteries are by 
 this means often averted. Of the flannel bandage no 
 praise, in fact, can be fulsome ; it is the best friend of 
 the soldier in all climates and seasons, and no one 
 should ever go without it 
 
 Besides the waistcoat, light flannel drawers should 
 also be worn. These may be made of cotton flannel, 
 which shrinks less, and for this purpose wears better 
 than ordinary woollen flannel. Woollen socks are 
 ;also necessary articles to health. But where any 
 specific cause exists why they should not be worn, as 
 by ^causing excessive perspiration and tenderness of 
 the feet, thick cotton hose should be served out in 
 .their stead. 
 

 THE CLOTHING. 79 
 
 OUTER CLOTHING. 
 
 Inasmuch as regulation prescribes what this shall 
 be, little opportunity is afforded us to say aught 
 touching either the pantaloons, the jacket, or the over- 
 coat. Of the necessity, as well as the advantage of 
 their being loose, we have already spoken. But there 
 is a subject connected with the uniform of soldiers, 
 whose importance demands a passing word even at 
 the hands of hygiene. That subject is its color, in re- 
 lation both to warmth as well as conspicuousness. 
 
 Color plays an important part in the clothing of 
 the soldier in two ways. First, as receiving and re- 
 taining more or less of the sun's rays, and being on 
 that account hotter, and second as presenting better 
 or worse marks for an enemy's aim. In relation to 
 heat, it is well known that black or any dark colors 
 are particularly absorbent of the sunlight, and conse- 
 quently make very hot clothing. The manifest im- 
 propriety of selecting such colors for summer wear, 
 unless, as in the zouave, the jacket is left open, be- 
 comes apparent to all. Such clothing are simply 
 sweltering clothes, and harass the soldier unncessarily. 
 The Arabs, daily exposed to the, sun, wear a white 
 bournouse, which, although made of woollen, is not in 
 the least oppressive. A tight dark garment would 
 be intolerable in their climate. But white cannot be 
 kept clean, besides which it is too glaring to the eye, 
 affords too good a mark to the enemy, and is there- 
 fore objectionable. The same reason applies to red. 
 
80 THE CLOTHING. 
 
 Gray, luff, or any neutral tint, presents us with the 
 best requisites for a uniform. 
 
 But the second aspect under which color can be 
 viewed in relation to uniforms, is that in which it 
 presents itself as a mark for an enemy's aim. The 
 least possible thought upon the subject will convince 
 us that all brilliant colors, red, orange, white, are, 
 from their high reflective powers, visible at great 
 distances, and consequently a fair mark for sharp- 
 shooters. Therefore pickets, guards, and skirmishers 
 should wear clothing of a more sober and neutral 
 tint. Statistics declare that for every 12 men in red 
 who are struck in an engagement, there are only 7 in 
 green, and 5 in gray, thus showing the decided advan- 
 tage of this last color over all others in point of im- 
 munity. These simple facts should be allowed to have 
 more weight than they do in the uniforming of volun- 
 teer regiments, and surely, if color can in some degree 
 prevent liability to bullet-wounds, and thus diminish 
 the ratio of an -army's mortality, hygiene does not 
 transcend its province by calling attention to the fact. 
 
 The very small size of the kepis and its closeness 
 to the head, by forbidding all circulation, and keeping 
 a heated cloth in contact with the skull, greatly pre- 
 disposes to accidents by sunstroke. To prevent this, 
 the so-called Havelock cap, or helmet of white linen, 
 with a tail-piece shielding the entire neck, is a most 
 desirable invention. This cap is worn by the British 
 army in India, and proves an effectual protection 
 against sunstroke. It should be at once adopted 
 among our own troops. 
 
THE CLOTHING. 81 
 
 Shoes with gaiters are the most desirable of all 
 foot coverings for soldiers. They are lighter than 
 boots, allow more freedom of motion to the ankle, 
 and do not occupy so much room in the knapsack. 
 The confined atmosphere of the boot, which under 
 exposure to the sun becomes insufferably hot, keeping 
 the foot in a vapor bath, and acting almost like a 
 blister upon it, is entirely avoided in the shoe. The 
 use of boots, in fact, should be prohibited to soldiers, 
 as wearing them on a long march certainly impairs 
 the soundness of men's feet. In summer, a white 
 canvas gaiter should cover the shoe, as well to pro- 
 tect the foot from the sun, as to prevent the dust from 
 entering it while marching. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE IN GENERAL, AND 
 THE INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 ALTHOUGH what has been said in the foregoing 
 chapters relates to the care of troops, and the main- 
 tenance of a better state of health among them in the 
 various circumstances of their active life, I have still 
 thought that it might be advisable to devote a special 
 chapter to the prevention of disease, and the individual 
 preservation of health, as furnishing suggestions for 
 general and individual guidance under the ordinary 
 necessities of a soldier's existence. 
 
 GENERAL GUIDANCE. 
 
 CLIMATE. 
 
 The sudden changes of climate to which soldiers 
 are exposed in a campaign, are among the most im- 
 portant of the causes prejudicial to their ^ealth. 
 When it is remembered also that climate does not so 
 much depend upon latitude as upon the physical char- 
 acter of locality, it will be perceived that it is not 
 
GENERAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 83 
 
 necessary to transport troops many hundreds of miles 
 in order to bring them under the influences of an 
 entirely different clime. A change of a single degree 
 in latitude may bring us where the nature of the 
 locality, the soil, the character of the vegetation, and 
 the prevailing winds, are as a foreign clirne to our 
 constitutions ; while, even in the midst of a tropical 
 climate a towering mountain will present us with 
 zones of temperature varying from that of its base to 
 that of the Arctic regions. Altitude is therefore a 
 modifier of latitude. The climate of Vera Cruz and 
 the tierra caliente is so entirely different from that of 
 other places in the same latitude, but situate high 
 above the level of the sea, that the inhabitants of these 
 latter regions cannot enter what is to them, the foreign 
 climate of the coast, without suffering from endemic 
 fevers ; and the same may be said of the inhabitants 
 of the mountains bordering on the Roman campagna. 
 Observation shows that along the sea-coast and 
 the borders of rivers, in the southerly part of tempe- 
 rate climates, the daily evaporation from the surface 
 is productive of heavy dews, more or less laden 
 with the products of decomposed vegetable matter. 
 Where land-winds also habitually prevail, these pro- 
 ducts are dispersed over regions remote from the 
 centre of their production. Contaminating effluvia are 
 thus transported into the atmosphere of localities free 
 from any internal sources of malaria.* Low grounds 
 
 * Dr. Ferguson was of opinion that the intermittent fever at 
 Edinburgh was due to malarial poison wafted from Holland. 
 Phil. Jour. Med. & Phys. Sci., No. 16, p. 374. 
 
84: GENERAL PEESERYATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 covered with vegetation, and bordering the sea-coast 
 or the river-banks of southerly countries, whether they 
 be actually dry or not, are always to be considered 
 malarious regions, as towards new comers from the 
 north. 
 
 Deep valleys or bottoms, where the diurnal varia- 
 tions in temperature between noon and night are no- 
 ticed to be great, (from 15 to 30,) may also be placed 
 in the above category. 
 
 Situations at the foot of a mountain immediately 
 rising from a low plain bordering the sea, are also 
 objectionable. 
 
 Rains in all warm climates greatly increase the 
 disparity of the temperature, and even in a single day 
 may excite dysenteric affections. For this reason, 
 the farther south we go the more protection we need 
 against moisture, whether in the form of dew or 
 rain. 
 
 The greatest liability to malarious poison (paludal 
 intoxication) occurs when the equilibrium of the at- 
 mosphere is in a state of disturbance, as during some 
 two hours after sunset, and two before sunrise. 
 Within these intervals troops should not be exer- 
 cised nor kept fasting. Breakfast should precede 
 the performance of any morning duties, and supper 
 should be eaten at sunset. 
 
 In order to acclimate an army with as little sick- 
 ness as possible, it should enter the foreign clime at 
 that season of the year which can most gradually in- 
 troduce it to those extremes of heat or moisture, that 
 mark its character. By doing this, all suddenness 
 
GENERAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 85 
 
 of transition is avoided, the clothing is not immediately 
 obliged to be changed, nor the diet ; the system gradu- 
 ally accommodates itself to the change in functions re- 
 quired, and the sickiy season, when it does come, is met 
 by constitutions already so much modified as to have 
 lost much of their impressibility to endemic causes 
 of disease. The ratio of sickness will always diminish 
 in proportion to the degree of acclimation attained. 
 
 There are a number of duties occasionally devolv- 
 ing upon soldiers which, from the infrequency of their 
 occurrence, are peculiarly distressing to those who 
 undertake them. Digging trenches, building bridges 
 and causeways, making roads, and the like, impose 
 severe tasks upon soldier!. Yet these duties are at 
 all times indispensable to the successful passage of an 
 army through an enemy's country, and they must 
 then be performed at any and every hazard. Their 
 execution involves two of the most perilous conditions 
 to health possible, in the form of great fatigue and ex- 
 posure to terrene exhalations. Without some pre- 
 cautionary measures, this kind of duty affects the 
 health of the soldier more than any other single 
 cause, and when in particular the task is performed 
 in a climate to which troops are not indigenous, visita- 
 tions of disease may be speedily expected. 
 
 As a rule, therefore, whenever troops enter a 
 foreign climate,* and until some considerable time 
 
 * I need hardly remark that our Northern troops, in passing 
 now no farther south even than the lower Chesapeake, will, enter a 
 climate entirely foreign to their constitutions, and that, too, at a 
 season most likely to impress its character upon them. Thus, 
 
86 GENERAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 has elapsed, they should not be called upon to make 
 excavations, or greatly disturb the soil in parts not 
 inhabited, or already brought under cultivation. If 
 it becomes necessary to order such labor done, na- 
 tives, when they can be employed, should undertake 
 the task. For experience proves that in all alluvial 
 districts the disturbance of the soil for the first time 
 by the unacclimated, is sure to invite an attack of 
 malarious fever. But where natives cannot be found 
 to do the work, men should be selected who have 
 come from adjoining districts, the chance of immunity 
 always diminishing in the ratio of the distance of 
 their usual habitations.* 
 
 Whenever troops are stationed either on the sea- 
 board, or in malarious districts, their diet should be 
 increased in quantity ; overcoats should be worn at 
 night, when on guard ; and no out-door morning 
 
 New Englanders and New Yorkers will have traversed from five to 
 eight degrees, and the men of the Middle and Western States from 
 one to five degrees. From certain resemblances in soil and climate, 
 it is probable that men bred in the great valleys of the Ohio and 
 Mississippi (Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio) will 
 be less affected by these changes than those from our Northern sea- 
 board States. It will be well to consider these things in garrison- 
 ing posts in the South, particularly in the low, alluvial regions 
 bordering on the sea ; or in the vicinity, of lagoons, and the deltas 
 of great rivers. 
 
 * Wherever great fatigue and continued exposure become in- 
 evitable in malarious districts, it might even be well to anticipate 
 attacks of intermittent fever, by administering to those who are 
 particularly exposed, a one-grain pill of the Sulph. Quinse every 
 morning fasting. M. Du Chaillu, the African traveller, assured 
 me, that, by following this course, he had been enabled to traverse 
 the m6st malarious intertropical regions with comparative im- 
 punity. 
 
GENERAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 87 
 
 duties should be exacted of the men while fasting. 
 Coffee should be dispensed to all who have returned 
 wet and fatigued from mounting guard, or any other 
 protracted exposure at night ; the great object being 
 to protect them against repressions of circulation due 
 to the differences in temperature between midday 
 and midnight. 
 
 Men, passing suddenly from a northern to a south- 
 ern climate, suffer at first a sort of general erethism. 
 Their systems are surcharged with heat, the blood is 
 expanded, and there is fulness of the capillary circula- 
 tion. If, now, they are exposed after nightfall to 
 heavy dews and a temperature from 15 to 30 colder 
 than the day, it is easy to divine what must happen 
 to systems thus highly excited. " Cold," says Dr. 
 Mosely, " is the cause of almost all the diseases in 
 hot climates, to which climate alone is accessory." 
 And cold acts upon the nervous system precisely as 
 does the malarial poison, by depressing its tone, and 
 lowering the functional activity of the large organs. 
 Whenever soldiers have been thus circumstanced, and 
 an incipient chill is felt, they should immediately, on 
 returning to their quarters, lie down with additional 
 covering over them, and endeavor to provoke a gentle 
 perspiration. The sooner this is done, the less will 
 be their liability to permanent disease. Every hour 
 of omission aggravates the character of the disturb- 
 ance, and that which was simply a slight chill, which 
 a cup of hot coffee or a thick blanket could have 
 dispelled, may soon pass into a form of obstinate and 
 complicated fever. 
 
88 GENERAL PKESEKVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 When on guard at night, the best protection 
 against sluggishness of the circulation is to keep the 
 mind active. Be wide awake. The overcoat imparts 
 no heat to the body it only serves to retain that 
 which is already there. The generation of it must 
 come from within, and there is no better steam-engine 
 for the human body than an active and thoroughly self- 
 possessed mind, determined, by a concentration of 
 all its energies, upon the task before it. Men ex- 
 posed in the Arctic regions, never freeze to death so 
 long as the mind is active, but the moment it goes 
 asleep the body becomes fatally chilled. An active 
 mind serves also to repel disease, and thus to preserve 
 health. It is the conservator of the equilibrium of 
 the vital forces, and regulates the measure of their 
 activity. 
 
 After every exposure to wet, particularly at night, 
 the men should be served with a ration of hot coffee, 
 or ginger tea, and care should be had that they change 
 themselves so as to sleep in dry clothes. And owing 
 to the difficulty of drying clothing in a soldier's tent, 
 each company should set apart a tent for this express 
 purpose. The noisome smell, and the dangerous 
 consequences to health, arising from keeping wet 
 clothes saturated with organic emanations in an in- 
 habited tent, cannot be exaggerated by any recital of 
 ours. Proper drying quarters should, therefore, be 
 provided. 
 
 Whenever an epidemic declares itself in camp or 
 at a post, all ordinary precautions must be doubled. 
 Active duties must be diminished in their duration, 
 

 GENERAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 89 
 
 fatigues avoided, periods of guard-mounting lessened, 
 and modifications made in the dietary, if deemed ne- 
 cessary by the medical officers. A sanitary squad, 
 under the command of a surgeon's mate, should be 
 organized, for the purpose^T daily inspecting all tents, 
 huts, barracks, kitchens,' wells, and sinks. And a 
 daily meeting of the staff and medical officers should 
 be held, to hear reports upon the progress of the 
 disease, to receive suggestions, and exchange opinions 
 upon its origin, history, and character, and to pro- 
 mulgate orders for its speedy control and eradica- 
 tion. 
 
 Skirmishers are often absent at great distances 
 from the camp, are scattered in small parties over a 
 large extent of territory, and cannot, if wounded, 
 immediately receive that medical relief which their 
 case requires. They may be miles away from the 
 main body, their own surgeons cannot be every- 
 where at hand to assist them, and hours may elapse 
 before help can reach them. On a lone mountain- 
 side, in a swamp or a thicket, the skirmisher may 
 fall and perish, as hundreds have before him, un- 
 discovered and unassisted. 
 
 " For want of timely aid 
 Thousands have died of medicable wounds." 
 
 In order to provide against these contingencies, 
 there should, to each party of sixteen skirmishers, be 
 given a small hospital knapsack containing field tour- 
 niquets, lint, and bandages, the carrier of which 
 should be instructed how to use them. 
 
90 INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL GUIDANCE. 
 
 The soldier, like the sailor, is proverbially care- 
 less of himself. His life, he appears to think, be- 
 longs to no one but the state, and he accordingly sub- 
 mits to, whatever disposition of it she may make. 
 But although it be true that the soldier does not own 
 his time, and when under orders must always be 
 ready, it does not follow that any one is master of 
 his body. His person is still, within the limits of 
 discipline, all his own. And his duties of personal 
 self-preservation never cease but with life. It is his 
 duty to take as good care of his health as he can ; 
 to be cleanly, temperate, industrious, and moral, be- 
 cause he is the custodian of his country's flag and of 
 her honor ; and must vindicate, by the uprightness 
 of his character, his claim to be considered worthy 
 of defending her. 
 
 With a view of assisting him to preserve his 
 health, by pointing out the principal sources of dan- 
 ger to which he is exposed, the following suggestions 
 have been compiled. 
 
 EXERCISE. 
 
 After violent exercise, avoid lying or sitting im- 
 mediately, and in the shade, or with the wind at your 
 back. Let your coat remain buttoned, or if previ- 
 ously open, then button it. Keep in motion for a 
 little w 7 hile, and out of the sun, gradually cooling offj 
 and finishing by washing face, neck, hands, and arms 
 in cold water. All who have witnessed the dangerous 
 
. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 91 
 
 consequences that ever attend upon sudden checks of 
 perspiration, whether through the instrumentality of 
 air or the agency of cold water, will readily appre- 
 ciate the language of the poet of health. 
 
 " Hot from the field, indulge not yet your limbs 
 In wish'd repose ; nor court the fanning gale, 
 Nor taste the spring. Oh ! by the sacred tears 
 Of widows, orphans, mothers, sisters, wives, 
 Forbear. No other pestilence has driven 
 Such myriads o'er the irremeable deep." 
 
 Drink not, then, while hot and- wearied, on the 
 march, from any stream, however tempting. Rinse 
 your mouth, wash hands and face, but wait until 
 you are cool before drinking, and then drink but 
 little. In fact, the less water one drinks on a march 
 through a strange country, the better. Change 
 of water, more than any other single thing, induces 
 derangements of the stomach and bowels, and to guard 
 against it, every soldier should be furnished with a 
 bottle of vinegar, a few drops of which will suffice to 
 correct any brackishness or liminess of water. 
 
 But a far better thing is to fill the canteen before 
 starting with half coffee and water* unsweetened, 
 which, when drunk cold on the march, is the best 
 thirst-slaking and most refreshing beverage in the 
 world. If coffee is not agreeable, tea answers just as 
 well. Both these beverages are tonic, stimulant, and 
 satisfying. Tea is more astringent than coffee, and 
 
 * The French troops depend entirely upon their bidon of weak 
 coffee on the march, experience having convinced them that most 
 waters are " flat, stale, and unprofitable," by the side of this. 
 
92 INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 for those disposed to looseness of bowels, is, on that 
 account, preferable. 
 
 CLOTHING AND CLEANLINESS. 
 
 Without cleanliness of person no one can preserve 
 good health. The skin being both a breathing as 
 well as an eliminating organ, requires daily airing. 
 It must be kept clean by friction as well as by fre- 
 quent ablutions, but cleansing the skin avails little 
 if the body-clothes are habitually soiled. For what- 
 ever is eliminated by the skin and absorbed by the 
 clothing (being effete animal matter) is readily de- 
 composed by the heat of the body, and becomes pu- 
 trid. The necessity for changing the clothes and 
 washing the body is therefore very apparent. It is a 
 protection to health in the sense of being a purifica- 
 tion of the body. 
 
 At least twice a week, in summer, the soldier, 
 besides his daily morning ablutions of face, neck, 
 hands, and feet, should w^ash his entire person. Soap 
 should be used in the process. In winter, once a 
 week may suffice. 
 
 lie should never sleep at night in the flannel shirt, 
 drawers, or socks worn during the day, but should 
 exchange them for others of the same kind. If he is 
 called in the night, he is just as ready with the shirt 
 and drawers he has on, as he would have been with 
 the others. At morning he should again resume the 
 articles put off at night. By thus changing them 
 morning and night, his body receives the benefit of 
 an air-bath, and both his day and nignt garments 
 
INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 93 
 
 have an opportunity to be aired, which should be done 
 by hanging them in the sun, so as to allow a circulation 
 of air around them. These may appear trifling 
 things, but they are nevertheless of great importance 
 to comfort and to health, as all will find who once 
 adopt them. A pinch of salt is also a trifling thing, 
 and yet the comfort and the benefit of a whole meal 
 may depend upon it. 
 
 Flannels worn in this way need not be changed 
 oflener than once a week, while, when worn night and 
 day uninterruptedly, they would become foul and 
 offensive in half that time. 
 
 But socks, whether woollen or cotton, should be 
 changed twice a week. The perspiration of the feet 
 renders them otherwise intolerably offensive, inso- 
 much that the soldier's presence may become insuf- 
 ferable to his fellow-lodgers at night 
 
 Avoid all sudden checks of perspiration. It is 
 better to perspire than to shiver. So long as the 
 skin is active and moist, there is little danger to 
 health 
 
 " For while the effluence of the skill maintains 
 Its native measure, the pleuritic spring 
 Glides harmless by ; and Autumn, sick to death 
 With sallow quartans, no contagion breathes." 
 
 When mounting guard at night in summer, it is 
 better to wear an overcoat, even if compelled to keep 
 it open, than to get chilled by going without it. A 
 chill is the first stage of every kind of fever, and in 
 southern latitudes is particularly to be dreaded. 
 
 Even if not so commanded by his superior officer, 
 
94 INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 the soldier should always wear flannel next the skin. 
 But if it cannot possibly be endured, he should still 
 wear a flannel apron over the stomach and abdomen, 
 as a preventive to bowel complaints. 
 
 To protect himself against sunstroke, the Have- 
 lock cover to the cap should be worn, or, in the ab- 
 sence of this, a wet sponge, handkerchief, a few large 
 leaves or grass, may be put in the cap. Abstinence 
 from spirituous liquors will secure the soldier against 
 predisposition to sunstroke, for it is found that the 
 intemperate are usually the first victims. 
 
 No one should, on any account, lie in wet cloth- 
 ing. Blankets must be aired at morning, like every 
 thing else that has been worn, and if wet should not 
 be used. 
 
 When straw is used in tents for bedding, it must 
 be daily turned, and when mouldy instantly thrown 
 away. 
 
 Let there be kept up a good circulation of air 
 throughout the night in the tent, by leaving the door- 
 way open. If the rain come in on that side, shut it, 
 and raise a part of the tent on the opposite side. 
 But never sleep without some ventilating orifice. 
 Good air is more essential than good food. A human 
 being consumes about 18 pints of it per minute, or 
 nearly two hogsheads and a half per hour ; and air 
 once expired is no longer fit to be respired. 
 
 A small trench dug around the tent makes a good 
 conduit for the rain, and prevents it from spreading 
 over the surface of the ground ; and the dryer the 
 ground is in and about the tent, the better for the 
 
INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 05 
 
 comfort and health of its occupants. For this pur- 
 pose all grass should be plucked out as closely as 
 possible, and not suffered to decay, as it will from 
 the heat of bodies lying on it. As elsewhere said, 
 the proper flooring for a tent is an India-rubber blan- 
 ket. If the government does not furnish one, and the 
 soldier can afford it, he should provide one for himself. 
 
 DIET AND DIGESTION. 
 
 Although \he soldier's dietary is fixed by law, 
 neither his appetite nor his digestion regulate them- 
 selves by it. They ever retain their own character, 
 and suffer or flourish according to the degree of 
 compatibility existing between them and his food. 
 It is true that all men need good food and well cooked, 
 but all men do not need the same quantity, nor to be 
 fed the same number of times. Hence, rules of 
 quantity and hours of eating are made to suit the 
 average of mankind ; and, within these rules, every 
 individual must, by a proper study of his own tem- 
 perament and wants, guide the daily conduct of his 
 body. 
 
 As a general rule, sameness of diet, when long 
 continued, weakens digestion in all men. Therefore 
 lot there be some variation daily, even if it only con- 
 sists in omitting part or the whole of any article. 
 The stomach will relish it all the better when it is 
 again resumed. Thus, soup may be omitted at one 
 dinner, and beef at another, and the beef may be 
 eaten at evening, or, better still, the next morning, in 
 lieu of a ration of pork. Always save any surplus 
 
96 INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 beef and bread in your haversack against a time of 
 need. It is more nourishing, more strengthening, and 
 less cloying than pork, and when this latter happens 
 to be the ration and you have no relish for it, the 
 bread and beef will serve you a good turn. Never 
 be afraid of good beef it is the best foundation on 
 which to build good health. 
 
 Avoid fat pork as much as possible in summer 
 and in warm latitudes. It disposes to bowel com- 
 plaints, and should never be made a staple article in 
 any dietary. It should only be used to flavor other 
 articles, or to fry with. Lean salt pork (hams, sides, 
 or shoulders) is not open to the same objection. 
 
 Beans, unless thoroughly cooked, are only fit for 
 horses. When half cooked they will provoke indi- 
 gestion and diarrhoea in almost any one. The best 
 preventive against them in such a state is to let them 
 alone. All the vinegar and pepper you can put on, 
 will not render them digestible. When sound and 
 well cooked, however, they make an excellent side 
 dish ; but an entire meal should never be made of 
 them. They should be subordinated to meat, bread, 
 and potatoes. A little vinegar assists their solution, 
 and pepper corrects their tendency to produce flat- 
 ulence. 
 
 Eat your bread stale. It is lighter and more 
 digestible ; you will need less to satisfy you, and it 
 will incommode you less, whatever the quantity 
 eaten. Brown bread contains more nourishment than 
 white, and is, besides, slightly laxative. Some of the 
 strongest men in the world are fed on brown bread. 
 
INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 97 
 
 With rice, fat of some kind should be used as a 
 flavorer. All mucilaginous articles of food veal, 
 pork, beans, and peas should have a little vinegar 
 added to them as a dressing, also pepper. In sum- 
 mer, vegetable acids, like vinegar or sorrel, are ben- 
 eficial in small quantities. 
 
 Besides meat, vegetables are necessary to health. 
 Any succulent roots, such as are put in soup, should 
 be partaken of, but always as side dishes, and never 
 as staples. Thus with beef, carrots or parsnips, either 
 stewed or boiled, should be partaken of. Onions are 
 also beneficial, and should be eaten. They are stim- 
 ulating and somewhat medicinal. 
 
 Dried apples and peaches, when stewed, are de- 
 sirable articles, and serve a good purpose in the 
 system ; being slightly laxative as well as refreshing. 
 They should be flavored with a little ginger or clove, 
 and kept as a valuable store to be used occasionally. 
 
 Ardent spirits are not necessary to health in the 
 healthy. All authorities agree that their use is per- 
 nicious in warm latitudes, and the soldier is every- 
 where found to be better without them. Their place, 
 properly speaking, is among hospital stores. There 
 they should remain, and be dispensed only under the 
 advice of medical officers. Abstinence from the use of 
 spirits, when in the South, will be found a great pre- 
 ventive against diseases of the stomach and bowels. 
 
 PASSES. 
 
 The privilege of a pass is too often a privilege to 
 the grave. The errors in diet, and the irregularities 
 
93 INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 in bodily conduct, committed by soldiers when al- 
 lowed to roam through a town, are so common, and 
 so speedily visited by physical penalties, as to plainly 
 indicate that this privilege is a dangerous favor to 
 grant. It rarely happens that the hospitals do not 
 attest, on the morrow, the consequences of this much 
 sought-for dispensation. Lounging all day from shop 
 to shop, eating sweets here, drinkhig spirits and acids 
 there, gorging themselves with all manner of incom- 
 patible edibles, and drinking too often of spirits to 
 excess, together with exposure to sun and dew ; these 
 are the parent causes of the mischief which so often 
 attends upon " passes." Were men but to reflect a 
 moment upon the line of conduct they so. frequently 
 pursue on these occasions, common sense would warn 
 them of the accidents to health which they thus vol- 
 untarily court. It is in the excesses committed both 
 in eating and drinking that lies the mischief. For, 
 would soldiers only behave themselves out of the 
 camp as in it ; were they to eat at the same hours, 
 and in no greater quantity, at the town table than at 
 the mess table ; would they avoid promiscuous drink- 
 ing, and take spirits if they will, only with their hol- 
 iday dinner they would not find themselves groaning 
 the next day under the doctor's care. Temperance 
 in all things, imprudence in none, should be their 
 rule and shield. 
 
 INDIGESTION. 
 
 Whenever an attack of indigestion is experienced, 
 accompanied by nausea, make no attempt to check 
 
INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. ( J ( J 
 
 this latter with brandy or any other stimulant, until 
 you have first aided the stomach in throwing off its 
 offending contents ; when this has been fully done by 
 vomiting, then, and not till then, are stimulants al- 
 lowable. Abstinence, rest, sleep, and small draughts 
 of cold water, are better sedatives to an irritated 
 stomach than either brandy or whiskey. 
 
 If diarrhoea * supervene, take no spirituous li- 
 quors to check it. Let the bowels first rid them- 
 selves of any offending matter ; after which rest, 
 extra warmth on the surface, so as to induce perspir- 
 ation an almost total abstinence from liquids, espe- 
 cially coffee, avoiding fat meat, beans, &e., will 
 generally produce relief within twenty-four hours. 
 If pain and discharges still continue, report yourself 
 on the sick list. 
 
 Constipation is never to be so much dreaded as 
 diarrhoea, because it is always more or less under 
 our control. f Diminishing the quantity of salt meat 
 daily consumed, and increasing that of vegetables ; 
 avoiding an over use of pepper, drinking a tumbler 
 of cold water fasting in the morning, soliciting nature 
 at regular hours, and not omitting to attend to her 
 calls when made ; an observance of all these particu- 
 
 * Wherever there is an habitual disposition to looseness of 
 bowels, much benefit is often derived from a simple abstinence 
 from liquids. A dry, unirritating diet, has been known to pro- 
 duce an entire change of this condition and habit of the bowels. 
 
 t Neglected constipation is very apt to induce piles. In such 
 cases, the best treatment is the application of a soft rag, wetted in 
 cold water, to the fundament, immediately after an evacuation. 
 Wash the parts, carefully push back any protruding pile, and on 
 going to bed, lay the wet rag on, and keep it there all night. 
 
100 INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 lars will most generally afford relief. But if much 
 headache accompany either constipation or diarrhoea, 
 the proper course is to report yourself at once to the 
 surgeon. 
 
 Taking cold, as it is commonly designated, is 
 usually the result of unequal exposure of different 
 portions of the body to the action of a low temper- 
 ature. A man in a state of perspiration takes off his 
 hat and fans himself, or remains in a current of air 
 bareheaded, or removes his cravat ; in a short time 
 he discovers himself to be hoarse ; he sneezes and 
 gives other indications of a cold in the head. An- 
 other, under similar circumstances, exposes a larger 
 surface of his person, and gets a more extensive cold. 
 In either case, a state of partial congestion of the 
 lining membrane of nose, throat, and possibly lungs, 
 has happened. The capillary circulation, while in a 
 state of great activity, has become suddenly arrested 
 by the constricting effects of a low temperature upon 
 the walls of its blood-vessels. What is the conse- 
 quence ? First, a slight chill ; secondly, fever. Now, 
 the remedy is a plain one, and consists in re-estab- 
 lishing the activity of the skin. First of all things, 
 let the patient perspire, and the sooner he does so, 
 the shorter will be the duration of the disorder. 
 After the cold has " settled," it will be beyond his 
 reach, and the surgeon will then need to interpose 
 his skill. But until that time a man may, by early 
 dieting, total abstinence from liquids of any kind for 
 a day or two, and dressing warmly, recover himself 
 without medication. It only requires, immediate 
 
INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 101 
 
 action, and perseverance in carrying out its details, 
 to insure success. Napoleon used to treat his colds 
 by fasting all day, and riding on horseback ; two 
 most excellent means for stimulating the circulation, 
 and keeping up a constant moisture of the skin. 
 
 When the feet become tender from excessive per- 
 spiration to prevent which, care should be had on 
 a march to wash them night and morning in cold 
 water, bathing with spirits will harden and relieve 
 them. This is usually done by pouring spirits into 
 the boots w T hen on. But a better and a cheaper rem- 
 edy is good beef suet, which, when applied freely, 
 checks inordinate perspiration, keeps them soft, and 
 prevents cracks and chafings. Beef suet should al- 
 ways be included among a soldier's stores. 
 
 A veil, and a small bottle of camphorated oil for 
 anointing exposed parts, will answer a good purpose 
 to the soldier in southern latitudes, by protecting 
 him at night from musquitoes, and those other in- 
 numerable insects that " mostly do congregate" there. 
 
 TREATMENT OF WOUNDS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF THE 
 SURGEON. 
 
 As more or less time must always elapse between 
 the reception of a wound, and the attendance of a 
 surgeon, it will be well for every one to understand 
 in what way temporary relief can always be afforded 
 to the suffering. 
 
 Every soldier should carry about his person a 
 large, stout handkerchief. This will, in an emer- 
 gency, answer as a* tourniquet, a bandage, or a sling 
 
102 INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 for a wounded arm. A tourniquet is a strap made 
 from any kind of material, and twisted tightly about 
 a limb to cheek bleeding. A handkerchief, or a piece 
 of rope, is the readiest thing out of which to impro- 
 vise a field-tourniquet. In order to apply it, place 
 the strap around the limb loosely, and tie it in a hard 
 knot. Now bring the knot (which, if possible, should 
 have a little pad of cloth under it) directly over the 
 wound ; thrust a stick between the strap and the 
 limb on the side opposite to the wound, and twist it 
 around and around until the bleeding stops, and then 
 confine it. 
 
 Where the cut is large and gaping, first observe 
 whether the bleeding is continuous or by intermit- 
 tent jets ; if the former, then veins alone are wounded, 
 and the tourniquet should be applied below the wound, 
 but as near its edge as possible. Where, on the con- 
 trary, the bleeding is by intermittent' jets, then an 
 artery is wounded, and the tourniquet should be ap- 
 plied above the wound ; that is to say, between it and 
 the heart* Never pour spirits of any kind upon a 
 bleeding wound. It does no good, and only serves 
 to irritate and to inflame it. Wash out all dirt from 
 it with pure cold water, bring the edges as near to- 
 gether as you can, and apply the tourniquet as above 
 directed. 
 
 Whenever any one has fainted from loss of blood, 
 do not raise him up suddenly on any account. Raise 
 his head slightly and slowly, if desirous to give him 
 a restorative ; but never raise his chest until he has 
 fairly " come to," and breathes deeply. Before try- 
 
INDIVIDUAL, PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 103 
 
 ing to restore him, it is wise first to check his bleed- 
 ing, ast during faintness the blood almost ceases 
 flowing, and wounds can then be more easily at- 
 tended to. In transporting him to the ambulance, 
 and while in it, keep him horizontal, and free from 
 sudden motion. 
 
 A wounded man is always thirsty, and then he 
 needs, not spirits, but cold water ; give him his choice 
 in this particular, and you will see that water, water, 
 is the unfailing^ request. 
 
 Whenever any penetrating wound of the chest is 
 unaccompanied by external bleeding, and yet blood 
 is coughed up, and suffocation seems at hand, keep 
 the chest erect, fan the patient, cover the wound 
 closely with a pad wet in cold water, and give him 
 small sips of spirit and water. 
 
 Whenever joints are wounded, keep them in po- 
 sition, and free from motion, by wrapping a wet ban- 
 dage tightly about them ; and if any small, flat pieces 
 of wood can be found, use them as splints, placing 
 one on either side of the joint, and tightly bandaging 
 it. In this way much pain may be avoided from 
 muscular contraction, and even lockjaw be averted. 
 
 In all large wounds of the abdomen, particularly 
 those involving protrusion of the bowels, keep the 
 person lying down. Cover the wound, and place a 
 bandage around the body to prevent motion of the 
 bowels. 
 
 In wounds of the head, cold applications are al- 
 ways beneficial. Put on a wet pad, and a tight ban- 
 dage over it. 
 
104 INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 
 
 Let the wounded always be handled carefully 
 and tenderly, avoiding all suddenness of motion in 
 transporting them, and making every provision for 
 their comfort. 
 
 THE THROAT AND VOICE IN OFFICERS. 
 
 Officers, from a protracted use of the voice in an 
 unnatural key and in a dusty atmosphere, are often 
 troubled with irritation of the throat, which threatens 
 serious damage to the voice. I have no doubt, also, 
 that smoking induces a change in the follicles of the 
 mucous membrane, whereby its secretions are greatly 
 altered, and a pre-disposition to roughness and huski- 
 ness of voice is engendered. That pre-disposition 
 can be eradicated only with the habit creating it. 
 But during its prevalence, any extra effort to clear 
 the voice, and to push it beyond its natural key will 
 only result in producing chronic irritations of the 
 throat. To avoid this, the voice should never be 
 strained. By gradual efforts in the open air it can be 
 greatly increased in volume. Should irritation, how- 
 ever, manifest itself, it will be well to frequently 
 gargle the throat with cold water ; or, if that be not 
 sufficient, the addition of a few grains of tannin will 
 impart an astringent character to it, generally desir. 
 able in relaxed states of those parts. A good prepa- 
 ration for those who are habitually troubled with 
 irritation of the throat is, a solution of tannin in 
 glycerine (two scruples to an ounce.) By painting 
 the throat with this, which is neither irritating nor 
 corrosive, great relief will often be obtained. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 ON HOSPITALS. 
 
 HOSPITALS are among the indispensable necessities 
 of an army. Without them no force could be main- 
 tained in the field ; for the gallant men who flock be- 
 neath the standard of their country would be demor- 
 alized, and dispersed after the first battle, by witness- 
 ing the unrelieved sufferings and the merciless sacri- 
 fice of their fellow-soldiers. If it be true, as Homer 
 has sung, that 
 
 " A good physician, skilled our wounds to heal, 
 Is more than armies to the public weal," 
 
 it is equally true that in an army the " good physi- 
 cian " is powerless to treat wounds and diseases with- 
 out a hospital in \v hich to place his patients. 
 
 But observation has shown that while hospitals 
 are ever instituted to alleviate suffering and to pro- 
 mote good, they have, in too many instances, failed 
 to accomplish either object, and on the contrary been 
 instrumental in doin<j much harm. The bitter ex- 
 
106 ON HOSPITALS. 
 
 perience of Sir John Pringle in the campaigns of the 
 British army during the last part of the eighteenth 
 century led him to say that " hospitals are among the 
 chief causes of mortality in armies." This truth has 
 had, unfortunately, to be recognized even in our own 
 day, but with this difference that we not only know 
 whence comes this fearful mortality of hospitals, but 
 have practically demonstrated the fact that it can be 
 diminished by over one-half. In the general hospital 
 at Scutari during the first part of the Crimean war, 
 and which was very much over-crowded, two out of 
 every jive patients died, the mortality averaging 
 about 42.7 per cent, on the admissions. In the hos- 
 pital-tents, on the contrary, the mortality was only 
 about half that, showing conclusively the advantage 
 to be in favor of small-rooms, and fewer patients. 
 
 One of the principal causes of insalubrity in all 
 hospitals is evidently the deterioration of the air due 
 to the assembling of a large number of sick in any 
 one apartment. In former days it was the fashion to 
 have large wards, which, good enough in themselves, 
 were yet entirely robbed of their advantages by over- 
 crowding them with patients. Thus a writer, speak- 
 ing of the Hotel Dieu, at Paris, in 1778, says, that in 
 some wards there were from 500 to 800 patients, and 
 in each of the large beds (52 inches wide) from 4 to 6 
 occupants ! There was no classification of diseases 
 either, but all were promiscuously commingled ! It 
 is needless to say that epidemics constantly raged in 
 those wards, or that the mortality was exceedingly 
 high. No amount of ventilation, in fact, short of 
 
ON HOSPITALS. 107 
 
 tearing down the walls, could have relieved them of 
 their pestiferous atmosphere. 
 
 The first and great requisite of all hospitals is a 
 constant supply of pure, fresh air, brought directly 
 into each wcfrd, without passing through any room, 
 corridor, or passage-way. 
 
 The sick require a more rapid change of air than 
 the well. Their emanations, always more or less 
 offensive, serve, when commingled in the atmosphere 
 of a ward, greatly to depress the vital energies of 
 each other ; and thus a common retardation of recov- 
 ery ensues, even if nothing worse happens. The 
 offensiveness of the dejections in certain diseases, and 
 of all discharging wounds in general, requires that 
 military hospitals should beyond all others be well 
 ventilated. And, indeed, unless this be done they are 
 worse than useless, because they become simply foci 
 of purulent infection to all their inmates. It would 
 be far better to treat a wounded man out of doors, 
 and with nothing but a blanket over him for a tent, 
 than to subject him to an atmosphere which is very 
 sure to develop gangrene. Besides over-crowding, 
 which, as we have elsewhere seen, is so fruitful a 
 source of increased mortality in hospitals, the external 
 air may from various causes be vitiated, so as to pro- 
 duce analogous results; The position of the building 
 with reference to sewers, marshes, stagnant streams, 
 and the course of prevailing winds; or carelessness 
 in the administration of its out-buildings, sinks, wash 
 and cook houses, will all play an important part in 
 determining the health and chances of recovery of its 
 
108 ON HOSPITALS. 
 
 inmates. Miss Nightingale relates that in the hos- 
 pital at Scutari the mortality rose 
 
 From .... 17.9 in Dec. 
 
 To 32.1 in Jan. 
 
 And 42.7 in Feb. 
 
 although the wards were not over-crowded, but dead 
 dogs and horses had been lying for some time in its 
 yard ! At the Massachusetts General Hospital last 
 year, gangrene developed itself immediately upon the 
 opening of the mouth of a sewer in its vicinity. The 
 disease had never been previously known there. In 
 all hospitals situated in the populous parts of cities, 
 the treatment of certain surgical diseases, is attended 
 with much more uncertainty, and the percentage of 
 recoveries is much smaller, than in suburban or rural 
 hospitals. These facts show conclusively the im- 
 mense influence which locality alone exercises upon 
 the value of a hospital ; for, unlike other and merely 
 architectural defects, this one is irremediable. 
 
 The opinion is daily gaining ground that small 
 pavilion-hospitals are better than large buildings with 
 many stories. The number of human beings who can 
 with safety inhabit a given area of ground is limited, 
 and although stories upon stories may be built and 
 tenanted, yet the law of nature is not thereby changed. 
 As long ago as Hunter's day it was observed that the 
 mortality in the upper wards, all other things being 
 equal exceeded that of the lower ones ; and the in- 
 ference was thence drawn that there may be over- 
 

 ON HOSPITALS. 100 
 
 crowding as well by piling wards over each other, as 
 by overfilling any one ward. In recently constructed 
 European hospitals they have acted upon this sug- 
 gestion by extending their area, and diminishing their 
 altitude. This lightens the duties of the service very 
 much, by bringing so many various rooms upon the 
 same floor. Convalescents also can move about more 
 easily, and having no high stair-cases either to descend 
 or to climb, do not require so much personal attend- 
 ance. In the cases of crippled men it becomes of 
 great advantage, in allowing them to take short walks 
 outside of the wards proper, to sun and air them- 
 selves in tho grounds, and to be near their own 
 quarters in case of faintness, or weariness. 
 
 Next to good locality, hospitals need abundance 
 of sunlight in all their wards ; and it is unnecessary 
 to explain why, because of the universal knowledge 
 of the benefits accruing to mind and body from the 
 daily and direct influences of sunshine. Wards must 
 be so constructed that the sun may be able to shine 
 in them during some portion of the day. 
 
 Deficiency of space, for the numbers contained and 
 the successful performance of the various hospital 
 services, is another evil to be guarded against. 
 While overcrowding relates more particularly to the 
 condition of wards, deficiency of space includes the 
 commingling in proximity of duties which, by reason 
 of the noises produced by them, or the smells evolved, 
 should be kept at a distance from the sick. Thus, 
 the kitchen, the wash-rooms, and store-rooms should 
 not be in contiguity to the wards. The smells of the 
 7 
 
110 ON HOSPITALS. 
 
 one, and the noises of the other, would both disturb 
 and distress patients. In the wards, beds should be 
 at least three feet apart, so as to admit of a small stand 
 or table between them. 
 
 Ventilation is, after all, the great desideratum in 
 all hospitals. Plenty of air and a constant renewal 
 of it, is what the sick must have. The size of the 
 wards should be so regulated as to secure to each 
 patient from 1,000 to 1,500 cubic feet of air, with 
 ventilation adequate to supplying him with 60 cubic 
 feet of fresh air per hour. This air, as before said, 
 should come directly into the ward, and without first 
 passing through any corridors, rooms, or passage- 
 ways. Every such channel of ingress is more or less 
 contaminating and therefore objectionable. 
 
 Beds. The best beds for hospitals are hair- 
 mattr asses, which arc always smooth, soft, and 
 springy. Straw is cold and hard, and wholly unfit 
 for the sick to lie on. It is not advisable to place 
 beds against dead walls, as more or less moisture is 
 always emitted by them. The current of air flowing 
 along their sides is cooler, denser, and therefore ob- 
 jectionable as a local atmosphere for the sick. Nor 
 should beds be placed directly opposite to windows. 
 Of these last there should be enough to have one win- 
 dow between every two beds. 
 
 Walls. The walls of hospitals should be made 
 of materials that are not absorbent ; hard finish 
 painted with some neutral tint is best. But in hos- 
 pitals hastily constructed and intended only to be 
 temporary, such precautions cannot always be taken. 
 
ON HOSPITALS. Ill 
 
 They are often shanties or huts, hastily put up with 
 boards and unsusceptible of more perfect finish. But 
 even in such cases protection may be obtained by 
 thoroughly washing them over, walls and ceiling, 
 with some neutral tint. TFAite-wash is too glaring to 
 the eyes, and a mellower tint is better. The process 
 stiould be occasionally repeated, taking advantage of an 
 opportunity when the sick can be -removed to another 
 ward. It should never be done while they are in it. 
 
 Ceilings should be high, the higher the better ; 
 but never less than 12 feet. The bedsteads of iron ; 
 the furniture of hard wood, and the utensils of glass 
 and earthen. 
 
 One nurse to every ten bedsteads, and one surgeon 
 with two assistants to every fifty patients, seems 
 about as little as will suffice. 
 
 The best size for wards on the score of cleanliness, 
 ventilation, and facility of service is that containing 
 about 20 beds. 
 
 List of Hospital and Field Supplies for the Side and 
 Wounded, as Recommended by the N. Y. Medical 
 Helief Association. 
 1. BANDAGES. Assortment and proportionate 
 
 numbers of each variety required : 
 
 1 
 
 dozen, 
 
 1 
 
 inch wide, 
 
 1 
 
 yard 
 
 long. 
 
 2 
 
 dozen, 
 
 2 
 
 inches wide, 
 
 3 
 
 yards 
 
 long. 
 
 2 
 
 u 
 
 2i 
 
 u 
 
 3 
 
 a 
 
 u 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 " 
 
 " 
 
 * 
 
 it 
 
 31. 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 u 
 
112 ON HOSPITALS. 
 
 2. Lint Scraped and ravelled, in equal propor- 
 tions. 
 
 3. Old linen and cotton cloth, without selvedge or 
 seams, for compresses. 
 
 4. Ring pads and cushions. 
 
 5. Cotton batting and cotton wadding ; fine flax 
 and sponges. 
 
 6. Red flannel in the piece. 
 
 7. Bookbinders' boards for splints ; pieces 18 by 
 4 inches. 
 
 8. Saddlers' silk for ligatures ; wax, pins, and 
 small pin-cushions. 
 
 9. Sewing needles, assorted in cases ; linen thread, 
 tape, and sc-issors. 
 
 10. Adhesive plaster, camel-hair pencils, oiled 
 silk, oiled muslin, india-rubber and gutta percha 
 cloths, in the piece. 
 
 11. Wrapping-paper. 
 
 12. Cotton shirts, drawers, and slippers. 
 
 13. Sheets, 4 feet wide and 6 feet long. 
 
 14. Bed-sacks, 3 feet wide and 6 feet long. 
 
 15. Pillow-sacks and towels. 
 
 16. Hospital knapsacks. 
 
 17. Field stretchers. 
 
 18. Eye-shades of green silk. 
 
 19. Lanterns. 
 
 20. Bed pans and urinals, metallic ones preferred. 
 
 21. Dressed sheep-skins. 
 
ON HOSPITALS. 113 
 
 FIELD HOSPITALS. 
 
 Field hospitals or ambulances are a part of the 
 necessary equipment of armies. They are of two 
 kinds, either stationary or flying. The permanent or 
 stationary ambulance is located at some distance 
 from the field of battle and out of harm's way ; while 
 the flying ambulance follows the regiment into bat- 
 tle, and affords provisional succor to the wounded 
 until they can be transported to the stationary hos- 
 pital. 
 
 As army regulations prescribe the details .of ar- 
 rangement for this class of hospitals, little need be 
 said on the subject. Their temporary character, too, 
 removes them from the necessity of those hygienic 
 observances so indispensable in the construction of 
 permanent hospitals. 
 
 The propriety of localizing the stationary ambu- 
 lance near a stream of water, and of designating its 
 location by a flag which can be plainly seen, will 
 readily occur to every surgeon. What is chiefly 
 wanted also, is a sufficient corps of hospital-dressers, to 
 relieve the surgeon from all duty but that of ope- 
 rating. 
 
 In most of our volunteer regiments there is plain- 
 ly an inadequacy of medical assistance. One surgeon 
 and mate are not enough to perform successfully tho 
 ambulance service of a whole regiment. More assist- 
 ants are needed, otherwise you will cripple the sur- 
 geon in times of pressing want by taking away his 
 mate to attend the flying ambulance. This certainly 
 
114: . ON HOSPITALS. 
 
 is jeopardizing the lives of the wounded in a most rep- 
 rehensible manner. " Considering how many young 
 medical men there are who thirst for an opportunity 
 as well to serve their country and humanity, as to 
 perfect themselves in surgical knowledge, we cannot 
 feel that the state could do our brave volunteers a 
 more signal service than to enlarge the medical staff 
 of our various regiments to an extent commensurate 
 with what, it strikes us, must eventually become 
 among the most prominent necessities of the medical 
 service in our army. All will agree, at least, in the 
 fact that the medical assistance hitherto provided to 
 meet the exigencies of the terrible conflict that is im- 
 pending, is not adequate to the probable necessities 
 of the army, and that in no respect could greater 
 service be rendered our regiments than by the or- 
 ganization and instruction of a sufficient number of 
 good ambulance corps." * 
 
 * " War and Medicine," an article by the author, in the 
 American Medical Times of May 4, 1861. , 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 THE duties of a soldier requiring a great expenditure 
 of muscular force, his diet should be selected from 
 among those articles which are richest in nutritious 
 elements. This fact being admitted, the next necessi- 
 ty to be provided for is that of regulating his meal- 
 times so as to avoid protracted fasts, and, more impor- 
 tant still, to avoid making demands upon his strength 
 during such moments. All human power has its lim- 
 its, within which it may be educated to do much, but 
 beyond which it cannot be made to go without dan- 
 ger. In the strongest as well as the weakest man, 
 fatigue superadded to fasting is an invitation to dis- 
 ease. Nor will doubling the allowance of food serve 
 any purpose whatever, either in recuperating exhausted 
 nature, or enabling her the better to endure protracted 
 abstinence. It is true that Indians gorge themselves 
 in seasons of plenty, and endure fasting with apparent 
 impunity; but it must be borne in mind also that they 
 are not called upon to perform great and involuntary 
 efforts, with the weight of arms and accoutrements 
 
116 APPENDIX. 
 
 upon them ; that they can sit, stand, or lie, according 
 as they please, or sleep when, where, and as much as 
 they like. Under such palliating circumstances as 
 these, the effects of fasting lose half their depressing 
 character. 
 
 It may be stated as the result of universal observa- 
 tion, that, to men who are actively employed in out- 
 door pursuits, the intervals of meals should not exceed 
 six hours. This applies to the heaviest repasts ; when 
 the meal is a light one, and simply designed as a re- 
 freshment, rather than a re-enforcement of the system, 
 the interval should be much shorter, particularly 
 where active or violent exercise has followed upon it. 
 The rule in the French army is to take coffee-soup 
 (bread dipped in coffee) the first thing in the morn- 
 ing ; marching or drilling is then performed until 
 about 10 or 11 A. M., when the breakfast proper is 
 made ; at sundown the dinner, or supper, as it may be 
 called, is prepared, and terminates the cooking of the 
 day. 
 
 From this it will be perceived that, as a general 
 rule, the hardest duties of the day are performed upon 
 a light rather than a heavy meal. And this with good 
 reason, since, after a heavy meal, there is always less 
 inclination, and even less ability to undertake forced 
 marches or manoeuvres, than after a light one. The 
 best preparation for active exercise is, undoubtedly, that 
 which springs from a stimulating liquid mass requiring 
 to be digested before being absorbed, and thus remain- 
 ing for some time in the stomach. Coffee combined 
 with bread fnniishos tills i:i its m >st perfect form. By 
 
APPENDIX. 117 
 
 its bulk it distends by its stimulating properties it 
 gently accelerates the circulation by its specific qual- 
 ities it arrests the waste of tissues and, combined 
 with bread, remains long enough in the stomach to 
 constitute a meal, in the sense of affording refresh- 
 ment. When coffee cannot be obtainc-d, bean or split- 
 pea porridge, or vegetable soup, always adding a por- 
 tion of bread, will answer as a substitute. 
 
 It is particularly necessary in malarious districts to 
 guard men against the effects of fatigue, either in the 
 sun or while fasting. Therefore, no drills, parades, or 
 violent exercise should be imposed on troops before 
 breakfast, nor during the heat of the day. A ration 
 of bread and coffee should always be partaken of early 
 in the morning, and previous to any exercise. And it 
 is well in this connection to call attention to the fact 
 that preparations of coffee, of medium strength, act to 
 a certain extent as prophylactics against agues, diar- 
 rhoeas, and dysentery. On the other hand, too strong 
 decoctions of coffee combined with oily food (fat pork), 
 during the summer months, undoubtedly disposes to 
 derangements of the bowels. Without the pork, and 
 when moderately strong, there can be no doubt of its 
 beneficial effects upon soldiers. Sir George Ballingall 
 says that partaking of breakfast before exercise, was tho 
 means resorted to in the garrison at Hull for protection 
 against intermittent fever. The success of this course 
 soon proved its wisdom, and in the Island of Wal- 
 cheren, in 1809, the same measure was resorted to 
 with equal good effects. 
 
 Little need be said upon the score of tea, which, 
 
113 APPENDIX. 
 
 although having analogous properties to coffee, is, 
 from the absence of the essential oil contained in the 
 latter, inferior as a tissue-saver. Besides which, its 
 cost must always exclude it from the dietary of an 
 army. As a quencher of thirst, cold tea is fully equal 
 to weak coffee of a like temperature ; and both, when 
 at hand, should be used on the march instead of water. 
 Spirituous liquors do not produce similar results, 
 and experience everywhere conspires to show that 
 they are deceptive and disqualifying agents, wasting 
 the strength rather than saving it. No dependence 
 should be put upon them as articles of food, which 
 they are not, and their use should always be regulated 
 by the judgment of medical officers alone.* 
 
 * It must bo plain that, during bodily exercise, when ani- 
 mal heat is rapidly generated, and as rapidly expended, the 
 additional stimulus of alcohol in any shape can have no effect 
 but to hasten the period when the expenditure, outrunning the 
 generation, must speedily leave the subject in a state of utter 
 exhaustion in fact, be will be what is called blown, long before 
 his time; and the secret is at once disclosed why the water- 
 drinking Arab, with a few dates, or a little parched corn for 
 subsistence, will, on every trial of endurance, immeasurably 
 outstrip the full-fed European. 
 
 ***** 
 
 During night-guards and night-marches, after they are over, 
 and outlying pickets, it furnishes an excellent defence against 
 malarious chills, and all the ills of cold and moisture, provided 
 it be never administered until the body be at rest. Ferguson, Xotes 
 and Recollections of a Professional Life, pp. 78, 79. 
 
APPENDIX. 119 
 
 Culinary Formulas employed in the French 
 Army. 
 
 , NOON-DAY MEAL. 
 
 No. 1. Soup and boiled Beef. (Ration per man.) 
 i Ib. Beef. 
 
 i oz. Desiccated Vegetables, 
 i oz. Rice, 
 i oz. Salt. 
 
 Pepper (1 oz. per 100 men). 
 
 No. 2. Beef and Vegetables, same quantity as above, 
 li oz. White Bread. 
 
 Fresh Vegetables. 
 
 No. 3. Slews. 
 4 oz. Meat (beef or mutton), 
 li Ib. Potatoes. 
 1 Onion. 
 oz. Salt. 
 
 SaUCC - Z. Fat Pork. 
 
 . 2 drams (1 teaspoon) Vinegar. 
 
 No. 4. Meat and Potatoes, and Sauce, as before. 
 
 \ pt. Beans. 
 
 Meat for stewing should be cut into small bits be- 
 fore placing it in the pot. Bones, cartilage, and ten- 
 dons should be kept to make the next day's soup. 
 
120 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 5. Hotchpot. 
 i Ib. Fresh Pork, 
 i oz. Lard. 
 1 Ib. Potatoes. 
 
 Cabbages, turnips, carrots. 
 
 Salt and Pepper as in No. 1. 
 
 No. 6. Codfish. 
 61 oz. Salt codfish, 
 li Ib. Potatoes, 
 f i oz. Butter, 
 oz. Flour. 
 
 Sauce. \ 2 dr. Vinegar, 
 i dr. Mustard. 
 
 Pepper as in No. 1. 
 
 No. 7. Same. 
 Codfish and Sauce as above, 
 i pt. Beans. 
 
 No. 8. Stockfish. 
 
 6i oz. Stockfish, soaked, 
 li Ib. Potatoes. 
 
 Sauce, same as No. 6. 
 i oz. Salt. 
 
 In preparing salt fish for the table, there is always 
 danger of over-cooking it. It should never be boiled, 
 so to speak. Put it in cold \vater, change this several 
 times, as it grows tepid, and when wanted for the 
 table, let the water come fairly up to the boiling-point. 
 The fish will then be done enough. 
 
APPENDIX. 121 
 
 AFTERNOON MEAL. 
 
 No. 9. Potatoes* (whole). 
 
 1 Ib. Potatoes. 
 oz. Lard. 
 
 On tons. 
 oz. Salt. 
 
 Pepper. 
 2 dr. Vinegar. 
 
 No. 10. Same. 
 11 Ib. Potatoes. 
 9 oz. Carrots. 
 Chervil. 
 
 Sauce. \ * OZ< Lard< 
 
 i dr. Mustard. 
 
 Pepper and salt, as in No. 9. 
 
 No. 11. Beans (dried). 
 | pt. Beans. 
 
 Sauce, as in No. 10. 
 
 No. 12. Same. 
 
 J- pt. Beans. 
 | Ib. Potatoes. 
 
 Sauce, as in No. 10. 
 
 No. 13. Peas (dried). 
 
 f pt. Peas. 
 
 Sauce, as in No. 10. 
 
 * On the continent, potatoes are generally served by them- 
 selves, and as a separate course. 
 11 
 
122 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 14. Same. 
 i pt. Peas. 
 | Ib. Potatoes. 
 
 Sauce, as in No. 10. 
 
 No. 15. Porridges. 
 
 | pt. Beans. 
 
 Carrots. . 
 
 Sauce, as in No. 10, without mus- 
 tard. 
 
 No. 16. Same. 
 
 | pt. Peas. 
 
 Carrots and Sauce, as in No. 15. 
 
 No. 17. Same. 
 
 | pt. Peas. 
 
 Turnips. 
 Sauce, as above. 
 
 No. 18. Same. 
 
 li Ib. Potatoes. 
 Carrots. 
 Turnips. 
 Sauce, as in No. 10. 
 
 In all the foregoing, the vegetables should be 
 mashed. 
 
 No. 19. Rice and Milk. 
 
 5 oz. Rice. 
 
 t pt. MHk. 
 
APPENDIX. 123 
 
 oz. Powdered Sugar. 
 ^ oz. Cinnamon, 
 i oz. Salt. 
 
 No. 20. Barley and Milk. 
 
 5 oz. Barley. 
 
 Milk, Sugar and Spices as in No. 19. 
 
 No. 21. Fish Stew.^ 
 
 5 oz. Rice, 
 li oz. Salt Codfish. 
 oz. Butter. 
 Pepper. 
 
 The codfish, previous to stewing, should be chopped 
 fine. 
 
 We have elsewhere spoken of the necessity of vary- 
 ing the diet of troops, as a measure indispensable for 
 the preservation of health. This truth is now every- 
 where recognized, and its practice has been followed 
 by an increased exemption from attacks of scurvy. - In 
 fact, when onions, potatoes, and cabbage can be ob- 
 tained, no excuse exists for the presence of scurvy in 
 any army. These, and not medicines, are the true pre- 
 servatives against, and the best panacea for it. The 
 French troops in the Crimea preserved themselves from 
 its attacks, when no vegetables could be obtained, by 
 resorting to the leaves and roots of the dandelion, of 
 which they made a salad. 
 
 Potatoes take the first rank as an anti-scorbutic veg- 
 etable, and should be distributed at least twice a week 
 
124 APPENDIX. 
 
 to all troops. When they cannot be obtained, onions, 
 cabbage (pickled or raw), in the form of soup, with 
 sorrel, dried apples, &c., should be distributed with 
 the other rations. When practicable, cocoa or choco- 
 late might be profitably substituted for coffee, once or 
 twice a week. It is more directly nourishing, without 
 being so stimulating. 
 
 Indian Meal. There are numerous preparations of 
 this cereal which could be made use of to vary the diet 
 of soldiers. One great recommendation is the facility 
 with which it can be. cooked. The Southern army 
 has largely depended upon it for sustenance, and, be- 
 ing habituated to its use, has not apparently suffered 
 for the want of wheat flour. Made up in the form of 
 corn-bread, hoe-cake, or johnny-cake, it makes a good 
 evening ration for soldiers, but is hardly substantial 
 enough ever to take the place of wheat, below which 
 it falls very far in the scale of nutritiousness. It an- 
 swers for variety, and in that sense should be more 
 partaken of than it is. The yellow variety is the rich- 
 est in nutritive elements. 
 
 Unbolted Wheat flour is also a most excellent pre- 
 paration, and far more nutritions than that which is 
 very fine. It is common to laugh at this as an in- 
 vention of Dr. Graham, and the proper panacea of 
 dyspeptics alone ; but we should remember before do- 
 ing so, that the peasantry of Europe, on the continent 
 particularly, live for the most part on coarse bread, 
 much of it black, and compounded of buckwheat, rye, 
 oats, and other ingredients which Americans would 
 not deem edible in such shape. Yet the trophical 
 
APPENDIX. 125 
 
 quality of this bread is too well proved to admit of 
 doubt. Millions live and thrive upon it ; and in proof 
 of tbis may be stated tbe curious fact, reported from 
 one of tbe hospitals in tbe south of France, of a peas- 
 ant, who, being treated for a fever with the usual reme- 
 dies and diet, had a most protracted convalescence, 
 and was actually falling into a marasmus, despite 
 broths, jellies, eggs, milk, and brandy, until restored 
 to his ordinary diet of black bread, onions, and sour 
 wine, when he speedily recovered. 
 
 Alimentary Table. 
 
 DIFFERENTIAL ANALYSIS OF ANIMAL FIBRE. 
 
 THE following are tbe constituent elements of the 
 muscular fibre of various animals, as given by Brandes. 
 
 "Water. Albumen and Fibrine. Gelatine. 
 
 Beef 74 20 6 
 
 Yeal 75 19 6 
 
 Mutton 71 22 7 
 
 Pork 76 19 5 
 
 Chicken 75 20 7 
 
 Beef. 
 
 According to Berzelius, beef muscle consists of 
 
 Water 77.17 
 
 Muscular fibre, nerves, and blood-vessels . 15.80 
 Tendinous tissue ..... 1.90 
 
 Albumen analogous to the white of eggs . 2.20 
 
126 APPENDIX. 
 
 Substances soluble in water and non-coagula- 
 
 ble by heat 1.05 
 
 Substances soluble in alcohol . . . 1.80 
 
 Phosphates of lime 0.08 
 
 100.00 
 Wheat. Best Black Sea. 
 
 Water 10.00 
 
 Gluten 32.00 
 
 Starch 63.5 
 
 Glucose ....... 7.4 
 
 Dextrine ....... 5.5 
 
 Bran left upon the sieve . . . . 1.5 
 
 All the cereals and leguminous seeds increase in 
 weight, as well as bulk, during the process of cook- 
 ing; thus 
 
 100 Ibs. wheat flour make about 135 Ibs. bread, 
 
 100 " Indian meal " " 125 to 144 Ibs. 
 
 100 " hominy " " 333 to 400 " 
 
 100 u rice " " 250 to 300 " 
 
 100 " peas " " 175 to 200 " 
 
 100 " beans " " 175 to 200 " 
 
 Oats. 
 
 Nitrogenous matter 14.39 
 
 Oily matter . ... . . 5.50 
 
 Starch . 60.59 
 
 Woody fibre . . . . . . 7.06 
 
 (Payen.) 
 

 APPENDIX. 127 
 
 Rice. 
 
 Starch 89.15 
 
 Nitrogenous matter 7.05 
 
 Oily matter 0.80 
 
 Cellulose 1.10 
 
 Mineral matter ... 0.90 
 
 (Payen.) 
 Maize. 
 
 Starch 67.55 
 
 Nitrogenous matter 12.50 
 
 Oily matter 8.80 
 
 Woody fibre 5.90 
 
 (Payen.) 
 Beans (dried). 
 
 Starch, dextrine, sugar .... 55.7 
 
 Nitrogenous matter 25.5 
 
 Oily matter 2.8 
 
 Cellulose 2.9 
 
 Mineral matter 3.2 
 
 Hygroscopic water . . . . . 9.9 
 
 (Payen.) 100.00 
 Peas (dried). 
 
 Starch, dextrine, sugar . . . . 58.7 
 
 Nitrogenous matter . . . . 23.8 
 
 Cellulose 3.5 
 
 Oily matter 2.1 
 
 Water . 9.8 
 
 (Payen.) 100.00 
 
128 APPENDIX. 
 
 Lentils. 
 
 Starch, dextrine, sugar . . . . 56.0 
 
 Nitrogenous matter . . . . 25.2 
 Oily matter, and traces of aromatic substances 2.6 
 
 Cellulose 2.4 
 
 Mineral salts ...... 2.3 
 
 Water 11.5 
 
 (Payen.) 100.00 
 Potatoes. 
 
 Water 74. 
 
 Starch 20. 
 
 Nitrogenous substances. . . . . 1.6 
 
 Oily matter; essential oil . . . . .11 
 
 Saccharine matter ..... 1.09 
 
 Cellulose 1.64 
 
 Phosphates, silicates of lime, magnesia, potassa, 
 
 soda 1.56 
 
 (Payen.} 100.00 
 
 HYGIENE OF BARRACKS. 
 
 MAN, in singular contra-distinction from other ani- 
 mals, requires constant protection from the too active 
 influence of the elements. In summer, excess of heat 
 prostrates his strength ; in winter, excess of cold stupe- 
 fies him, and disposes to local congestions. Moisture 
 with heat, or, worse still, combined with cold, affects 
 his constitution deleteriously. All extremes are nox- 
 
APPENDIX. 129 
 
 ions, all excesses to be shunned. He needs habitations, 
 therefore, to protect him from sun, dew, rain, and cold. 
 But in habitations he runs another risk, and perhaps, 
 of the two, a greater one than that arising from heat, 
 * storms, or vicissitudes of temperature. He runs the 
 risk, when under cover, of being poisoned by his own 
 emanations. Rousseau has wisely said that the breath 
 of man is fatal to his fellow-being. This is everywhere 
 true. In all accumulations of human beings in houses, 
 there is always an amount of vitiated air present, which, 
 although not cognizable to our senses, is yet perform- 
 ing its slow, silent, and sure undermining of the con- 
 stitution, even if it do not at once blow up an inflam- 
 mation of the blood, expressing itself through some 
 form of fever or contagious disease. Typhus and ty- 
 phoid fevers, small-pox and erysipelas, are the en- 
 demic maladies of civilized communities, living in 
 conditions of more or less agglomeration. These 
 diseases may be communicated to savage tribes, 
 but are rarely engendered among them. A distinguish- 
 ed writer on the Laws of Health has shown by un- 
 mistakable evidence the penalties which ever attend 
 the consumption of vitiated air.* 
 
 In barracks it is rare to find a sufficiency of cubic 
 space for the troops who are housed in them. A recent 
 report made to the British Parliament, by a commis- 
 sion appointed to inspect barracks, shows that in 165 
 establishments of that kind, existing in the United 
 
 Kingdom, only five were not overcrowded. All the re- 
 
 
 
 * Griscom : " Uses and Abuses of Air" 
 
130 APPENDIX. 
 
 mainder had from 25.3 to 90.5 percent, more soldiers 
 lodged in them than was consonant with a due regard 
 to the respiratory wants of each man. And this is the 
 rule, and not the exception, with most European na- 
 tions, as we can testify from personal observation. 
 
 The conditions necessary for the protection of health 
 in barracks are 
 
 1st. That they shall be elevated at least four feet 
 above the ground. 
 
 2d. That they shall not be in proximity to any 
 marshes stagnant ponds in small, narrow streets 
 near dumping-grounds for offal, on the outskirts of a 
 city near cemeteries tanneries slaughter-houses 
 starch-factories or in any place where the air is liable 
 to be vitiated by emanations from organic substances 
 undergoing decomposition. 
 
 3d. They should have a sufficient exposure to sun- 
 light, and a free circulation of air about them, so as 
 to render humidity in-doors impossible. Therefore 
 the best position for them is at a distance from other 
 dwellings, and in large open squares. 
 
 4th. The building, as a general rule, should face the 
 north-east and south-west have long corridors divid- 
 ing it entirely, or running across, with doors or win- 
 dows at each extremity. 
 
 5th. It should not have more than two stories. The 
 lower to be occupied as officers' mess-rooms, guard- 
 rooms, school-rooms, reading-room, &c., and the upper 
 story exclusively as dormitories. 
 
 6th. The kitchen should be in a one-story wing. 
 
 7th. Not more than 14 men should occupy one 
 
APPENDIX. 131 
 
 room. And on the door of this should be inscribed 
 its cubic contents of air, and the number of men who 
 should be lodged in it. The least amount of space 
 allowed each man should be 400 cubic feet, with pro- 
 visions for supplying 20 cubic feet of fresh air per 
 minute to every lodger. 
 
 8th. Windows should face doors, and at night, in 
 all weathers, should be let down at least 4 inches from 
 the top, and raised at least two inches from the bottom. 
 It would be better to have ventilators opening from 
 the outside through the mop-board, and thus bringing 
 a supply of fresh air directly into the lower part of 
 the room, so as to avoid the unpleasant draught which 
 might otherwise blow directly on men's beds, from 
 the lower part of the window. But letting down the 
 upper part of the window is not sufficient to ventilate 
 a room, unless the door be kept open, and fresh air 
 admitted from a window in the hall. Therefore all 
 sleeping-room doors, in barracks, should be kept open 
 during the night, and the hall-windows be opened. In 
 this way no lack of fresh air can ever exist, and men 
 cannot complain of draughts upon their beds from the 
 lower parts of windows being opened. 
 
 9th. Once a week, in fair weather, the floors should 
 be thoroughly scrubbed. This must be done early in 
 the morning, so as to give them time to dry before 
 night. Twice a year the ceilings and walls should be 
 whitewashed. 
 
 10th. No smoking or chewing should be allowed in 
 dormitories. 
 
132 APPENDIX. 
 
 llth. Every man should occupy a separate bed. 
 This should consist of the following articles, viz : 
 Iron bedstead. 
 
 Mattress of straw or corn-husks quilted. 
 2 Cotton sheets. 
 2 Blankets.* 
 1 Pillow. 
 
 12th. Urinals. The best urinals or night-buckets 
 for barracks are those made of tarred-canvas. They 
 should be cleansed every morning by first scrubbing 
 them with a broom, afterwards thoroughly rinsing 
 them, and then placing in them the following solu- 
 tion. 
 
 Take 2i quarts water, in which dissolve 2 handfuls 
 of soot; thoroughly commingle them, and pour into 
 the bucket ; let it remain in it till used. 
 
 Latrines. These buildings should be placed at some 
 distance from the barracks, and be made either direct- 
 ly over, or in some way to communicate with, a stream 
 of running water. They should be built wide enough, 
 and the seats so disposed that no fecal matter can at- 
 tach itself, in falling, to the walls. A part for urinating 
 should be arranged, independent of the other portions 
 of the building ; and no other kind of offal must be 
 thrown into them. Twice a week, at least, ashes, in so- 
 lution, or chloride of lime, or copperas dissolved in wa- 
 ter (1 Ib. to a bucketful), should be thrown down for the 
 
 * This is exclusive of the " regulation " or field blanket which 
 the soldier has given him on enlisting, and which he can place 
 upon his bed, if needful. 
 
APPENDIX. 133 
 
 purpose of disinfection. Each compartment should 
 have a door, and a window, or ventilating chimney. 
 
 CLOTHING. 
 
 THERE is little to add on the score of clothing to 
 what has been already said. It is well demonstrated 
 that looseness and warmth are mutually related, and 
 that beauty and grace of outline, as well as facility of 
 motion, belong to loose garments. These are the 
 qualities which have rendered the Zouave uniform so 
 captivating, although, in point of fact, it is far inferior 
 as a serviceable costume to the dress of the Chasseur 
 de Vincennes, which is admitted to combine all the 
 good points of color, looseness, grace, and durability 
 that can possibly be brought together. 
 
 For the infantry the shoe and gaiter are the proper 
 foot-covering ; for the cavalry, the boot is indispensa- 
 ble. As between the linen and the leather gaiter, 
 authorities, after long discussion, have finally settled 
 upon the latter as deserving preference. It is more 
 durable, does not soil so readily, sheds water, and may 
 be kept soft by applying oil or tallow.* 
 
 * The following forms an excellent water-proof paste, which 
 does not prevent shoes from being blacked : 
 
 Take of Tallow, 6 oz. 
 
 Wax, ) 
 
 Linseed Oil. > 2 oz. of each. 
 
 Venice Turpentine, ) 
 Melt together, and apply while slightly warm. 
 
 12 
 
134: APPENDIX. 
 
 The felt hat is a much better head-covering for all 
 weathers than the cloth cap. In rainy weather the 
 brim may be turned down so as to protect the neck; 
 the same may be done in exposure to the sun. Be- 
 sides which, the height of the crown admits of some 
 ventilation a thing utterly impossible with the tight- 
 fitting cloth cap. 
 
 The flannel bandage is an article of great value in 
 a sanitary point of view. It should be carried for use 
 at night, when on guard in hot climates, as it is parti- 
 cularly then that any check of perspiration tends to 
 cause derangement of the- bowels. But at ordinary 
 times, and when the soldier already wears a flan- 
 nel shirt, and is not otherwise exposed to deleteri- 
 ous influences, its use during the day, at least, may be 
 dispensed with. Foreign troops do not usually wear 
 woollen shirts, hence the value to them of the flannel 
 bandage, which, in continental countries, is considered 
 a necessary part of the soldier's equipment. But the 
 bandage might very profitably be worn over the pant- 
 aloons, and as a support to both the bowels and loins. 
 In that case it might be made long, in the form of a 
 scarf, and of any color which might be selected. It 
 would then subserve the triple purpose of warmth, 
 support, and ornament. 
 
 . .* 
 
APPENDIX. 135 
 
 CAMPING. 
 
 THE more fresh air that can be obtained in and 
 about tents, the better will the health of the camp be. 
 Therefore, the floor of tents never should be sunk be- 
 neath the level of the ground by digging out the earth, 
 nor should earth be heaped around and outside of them. 
 Experience everywhere shows this to be a prolific 
 source of disease, by the impossibility of thorough 
 ventilation which it occasions. Stones may be used 
 to confine the edges of the tent, and prevent the wind 
 from overturning it ; but nothing more compact than 
 this should be allowed. Around each tent, and at a 
 distance of six inches from it, a small trench must be 
 dug, to carry off the rain-water : this trench should be 
 p'aved with pebbles, and communicate with the drains 
 which are made on either side of the camp-streets. 
 
 No one should be allowed to urinate on the ground 
 
 o 
 
 in the vicinity of tents, nor to throw offal of any kind 
 into the drains. 
 
 The streets of the camp must be swept daily in fair 
 weather, and the tents struck twice a week, so that the 
 ground 6 beneath can be thoroughly sunned and dried. 
 
 Camping-grounds should be changed at least once 
 every three months, as the soil otherwise becomes so 
 thoroughly saturated with organic emanations as to 
 endanger health. It is often noticed that new regiments 
 occupy ing old camping-grounds have large accessions 
 
136 APPENDIX. 
 
 to tbeir sick-list from no other apparent cause than 
 this. Long after a camp has been broken up, a faint, 
 sickly animal smell reveals the place of its site, and 
 shows the continuing presence of deleterious emana- 
 tions from the soiL 
 
 All offal from kitchen and shambles, and picketing 
 grounds for animals, should be daily buried, or burnt. 
 
 SHELTER-TENTS AND CLOAKS. 
 
 TENTS. 
 
 THE shelter-tent is a French invention, first brouglit 
 into use in Africa, and was designed, through its very 
 portable character, to relieve the army of some of its 
 transportation, by enabling the soldier to carry with 
 him this means of protection. As originally designed, 
 it consisted of a piece of canvas almost square, of 
 about 1m. 72c. (5 ft. 5 in.) by 1m. 60c. (5 ft.), furnished 
 with buttons and button-holes, a tent-pole (46 in.), a 
 piece of stretching-rope eight feet long, three pickets, 
 and two picket-ropes eighteen inches long. 
 
 By uniting their squares of canvas, two men could 
 erect a small tent which completely covered them, al- 
 though leaving both ends open. A third square folded 
 in half was then thought of to close one of the ends, 
 thus compelling three men to lodge beneath its shelter ; 
 the remaining end, in order to be closed, required a 
 fourth square of canvas, and a fourth lodger. But in- 
 asmuch as the superficial area of the tent did not ad- 
 
APPENDIX. 137 
 
 in it of this, it was found most practicable to unite 
 two tents lengthwise into one, as in the .following cut, 
 which shoulcUftot only be twice as large, but closed at 
 both ends, and accommodate six men, each one fur- 
 nishing a square of canvas. This is the style of lodg- 
 ing heretofore adopted for field service by the French 
 army. 
 
 There are some inconveniences connected with the 
 old style of form and fastenings, which are giving 
 place to improvements of a sterling character. They 
 consist of the following : 
 
 Instead of buttons, easily torn off in the hurry of 
 pitching or striking tents, eyelet-holes are substituted, 
 with a cord reeving through them. They are always 
 in order, do not tear, nor wear any thing but the rope, 
 and allow of putting the tent together in much less 
 time than with buttons. The edges of the canvas 
 should be bound with an extra strip of the same ma- 
 terial, reaching to the eyelet-hole. 
 
 Again, the canvas, instead of being made in the 
 form of a rectangle, is made in that of a square, and 
 the eyelets being always equidistant, the pieces of 
 cloth tit closely on any and every side, and the rope 
 reeves through without leaving any large interstices. 
 12* ' 
 
138 APPENDIX. 
 
 The proper dimension for one section of a shelter- 
 tent is about six feet square.* This, with three pickets, 
 is the burden of each man, while the tvo tent-poles 
 (four feet long) and the stretching-rope (some twenty 
 feet) can be divided daily by lot among the occupants 
 of the tent, or carried with the baggage. 
 
 The shelter-tent may be made extremely useful on 
 the battle-field, as a means for transporting the wound- 
 ed ; folded double, with the tent-poles for handles, it 
 makes a good sedan-litter for such of the wounded as 
 can sit up ; used in its whole length, the wounded may 
 be carried supine, as in a hammock 
 
 SHELTEB-CLOAKS. 
 
 A very good shelter-cloak has been proposed by Dr. 
 L. He ure ux. of the Belgian Army, which is thus made. 
 
 O / ' 
 
 A rectangular piece of rubber-cloth, 64- feet long and 
 3 feet 4 inches wide, is pierced on the long sides with 
 eyelet-holes ; by attaching a cord to one of the corners, 
 reeving it through the eyelets, and drawing the ends 
 together, the cloak may be so shaped as to cover the 
 soldier's shoulders and equipments completely while 
 marching in a rain storm. When it is desired to 
 transform the cloak into a tent, it suffices to attach 
 one of the narrow sides to the earth, and to raise the 
 
 * The stature pf the French Army is below that of our own, 
 hence the necessity tor making our shelter-tent squares larger 
 than theirs. 
 
APPENDIX. 139 
 
 other on two sticks. An area equal to the hypothe- 
 nuse of the triangle thus formed will be covered. The 
 knapsack, for a pillow, is placed at the apex of the 
 triangle, and the soldier's feet extend towards the open 
 side. 
 
 By uniting several of these cloaks together, in the 
 form of a polygon, a very tolerable shelter for three 
 or four men can be made. A fire can be lighted in 
 the centre, the top being open, a ditch dug around 
 the outside, and the tent is then complete. The men 
 sleep, as before said, with the feet towards the centre 
 and the fire. 
 
 The following advantages are claimed for this tent : 
 
 It can be promptly set np or taken down. 
 
 It can be used under all circumstances, particu- 
 larly in bivouacking, since the soldier carries it with 
 him. 
 
 The opening can always be turned from the wind ; 
 sparks and dangers of conflagration are thus avoided, 
 and the men are better sheltered in a driving, slant- 
 wise rain. 
 
 It is, from its dark color, easily concealed from 
 the enemy, being mistaken at a distance for rocks, 
 earth, <fec. 
 
 The camp-fires are concealed by it from obser- 
 vation during the night. 
 
 It may be made larger or smaller, to accommo- 
 date one or four men., 
 
 On battle-fields it can be used as a temporary hos- 
 pital tent for the wounded, and thus protect them 
 from sun, wind, dust, or rain. 
 
192 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
 
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