42 ALIMENTATION. 



the tissues, were of course in the condition of men slowly 

 starving, notwithstanding that the only farinaceous form of 

 food which the Confederate States produced in sufficient 

 abundance for the maintenance of armies, was not withheld 

 from them. In such cases an urgent feeling of hunger was 

 not a prominent symptom ; and even when it existed at first, 

 it soon disappeared, and was succeeded by an actual loathing 

 of food. In this state the muscular strength was rapidly 

 diminished, the tissues wasted, and the thin, skeleton-like 

 forms moved about with the appearance of utter exhaustion 

 and dejection. The mental condition, connected with long 

 confinement, with the most miserable surroundings and with 

 no hope for the future, also depressed all the nervous and 

 vital actions, and was especially active in destroying the 

 appetite. The effects of mental depression and of defective 

 nutrition were manifested not only in the slow, feeble motions 

 of the wasted, skeleton-like forms, but also in such lethargy, 

 listlessness, and torpor of the mental faculties, as rendered 

 these unfortunate men oblivious and indifferent to their 

 afflicted condition. In many cases, even of the greatest 

 apparent suffering and distress, instead of showing any 

 anxiety to communicate the causes of their distress, or to 

 relate their privations and their longings for their homes and 

 their friends and relations, they lay in a listless, lethargic, 

 uncomplaining state, taking no notice either of their own 

 distressed condition or of the gigantic mass of human mis- 

 ery by which they were surrounded. Nothing appalled 

 and depressed me so much as this silent, uncomplaining 

 misery. 



" It is a fact of great interest that, notwithstanding this 

 defective nutrition in men subjected to crowding and filth, 

 contagious fevers were rare, and typhus fever, which is sup- 

 posed to be generated in just such a state of things as existed 

 at Andersonville, was unknown. These facts, established by 

 my investigations, stand in striking contrast with such a 



