ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF CERTAIN DISEASES IN REFERENCE TO HYGIENIC 

 CHOICE OF LOCATION FOR THE CURE OF INVALID SOLDIERS. 



The disposition to.be made of maimed and infirm soldiers after the war is becoming a 

 problem of great national moment. A most able physiciaiyvnd zealous sanitarian* lias already- 

 entered upon its solution, and after having collected materials from all important sources, has 

 already arrived at conclusions which highly commend themselves. His leading idea is, that 

 each one should enjoy a home connected with some occupation as a means of support ; and that 

 pensioners should not be collected into large communities by themselves, as at Greenwich, 

 Chelsea, or the Hotel of the Invalids. With this view he has classified the various employ- 

 ments, especially the petty offices in the gift of the general government and of corporate 

 bodies, which men deprived of a leg or an arm or otherwise maimed may be able to fill, or so 

 to combine these places that one man may supply what tke other lacks, and thus mutually 

 assist each other. Such as may be broken down by camp diseases and incapable of any active 

 labor, he proposes to classify also, and to have sanitary institutions established in various 

 regions, the localities for them being selected with reference to the particular infirmity to be 

 treated. It is with a view of contributing something towards this latter branch of the project, 

 and to show how reasonable it is, that this paper is undertaken. 



It has been vaguely known that certain diseases predominate in certain regions, while 

 they are comparatively unknown elsewhere. But the actual facts in the case, so far as this 

 country is concerned, have not, I think, been tabulated. I will confine myself for illustration 

 to the two great classes of diseases which are most likely to be the causes of invalidism, viz: 

 consumption and miasmatic diseases or fevers. 



It has been a disputed point whether the North is really and notably more subject to 

 consumption than the South. Judging from statistical tables derived from the principal 

 southern cities, the only sources we have had, until recently, for affording a conclusion, the 

 proportion of deaths there has not been much less than in the northern cities. The southerner 

 has told us, however, that the deaths in their cities are those of northern invalids who come 

 south to die; and that their own population is not much affected by the disease. 



In the census of the United States for 18G0, the diseases causing death that year were 

 given. This census was taken simultaneously everywhere, under the same auspices, and 

 according to the same formula. It covered a territory embracing nearly every variety of 

 climate and surface, surpassing in these respects any registration ever before attempted; 



* Dr. John Ordroneaux, of New York. 

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