INANITION. 39 



extraordinary mortality. The origin and causes of the hos- 

 pital gangrene which prevailed to so remarkable a degree, 

 and with such fatal effects amongst the Federal prisoners, 

 engaged my most serious and earnest consideration. More 

 than thirty thousand men crowded upon twenty-seven acres 

 of land, with little or no shelter from the intense heat of a 

 Southern summer, or from the rain and dew, with coarse 

 corn-bread from which the husk had not been removed, with 

 scant supplies of fresh meat and vegetables, with little or no 

 attention to hygiene, with festering masses of filth at the 

 very doors of their rude dens and huts, with the greater por- 

 tion of the banks of the stream flowing through the stock- 

 ade a filthy quagmire of human excrements alive with work- 

 ing maggots: generating by their own filthy exhalations 

 and excretions an atmosphere that so deteriorated and con- 

 taminated their solids and fluids, that the slightest scratch 

 of the surface, even the bites of small insects, were fre- 

 quently followed by such rapid and extensive gangrene, as 

 to destroy extremities and even life itself. A large number 

 of operations have been performed in the hospital on account 

 of gangrene following slight injuries and mere abrasions of 

 the surface. In almost every case of amputation for gan- 

 grene, the disease returned, and a large proportion of the 

 cases have terminated fatally. I recorded careful observa- 

 tions upon the origin and progress of these cases of gan- 

 grene, and examined the bodies after death, and noted 

 the pathological changes of the organs and tissues. All 

 these observations, together with the drawings, will be 

 forwarded to the surgeon-general, at the earliest possible 

 moment." ' 



In vol. i. ? p. 213, Dr. Jones gives the ration of the pris- 

 oners. This was probably the regular ration, which was 

 undoubtedly lessened at times, for the evidence taken by 

 the committee appointed to investigate the condition of 



1 Report, vol. i., Preface, pp. 12, 13. 



