SANITARY SCIENCE. 



433 



In fighting against scurvy, which attacked the 

 armies of the Tennessee autl llie Cumberland in 

 ISii.'J, the Commission found a congenial field for its ! 

 beneficent energies. An appeal to the farmers of 

 the Northwest brought within a month 15,000 1 

 bushels of vegetables^ when the government had 

 been able to procure none. Hospital gardens were 

 soon established at Murl'reesboro, Nashville, Chat- 

 tanooga, and Knoxville, Tumi., and at Newberne, ' 

 N. C. ; these proved of great value as producing | 

 a supply near the points where it was needed, j 

 Grant's forces at Vicksburg received vast quantities 

 of supplies from Louisville by the zeal of Lira. New- 

 berry and Warriuer, and the health of the troops 

 was largely improved thereby. After the fall of | 

 Vicksburg various branches of the Commission in | 

 the Northwest were active in sending boat-loads of j 

 stores. The hospitals along the Mississippi were 

 supplied from Cairo by the steamer Dunleith. While 

 the army was blockaded at Chattanooga, the Confed- 

 erates took seventeen wagons of the Sanitary train in 

 the Sequatchic Valley ; but seven succeeded in reach- 

 ing their destination, and the loads of these, and of 

 three which arrived later, furnished the chief supplies 

 of the hospitals for some time. A depot was estab- 

 lished at Stevenson, Tenn., and a feeding-station on 

 the route of the ambulances halt-way between that 

 point and Chattanooga. During the winter of 1S03-4 

 the ordinary food of the troops brought on attacks of 

 scurvy and chronic diarrhoea, which the Commission 

 combated by means of its gardens and of contri- 

 butions from the North. In January, 1804, the depot 

 at Nashville sent out 3423 bushels of potatoes and 

 157 of onions, 8742 gallons of sauer-kraut and I'.HW 

 of pickles, with 13,002 Ibs. of dried fruit, and other j 

 articles. The dissemination of these anti-scorbutics 

 did much to diminish illness and keep our forces up 

 to their work. The vegetables distributed in seven 

 months of 1804 reached an estimated value of over 

 $66,000. Burnside's men at Knoxville were like- 

 wise cared for. Sherman's march to the sea was 

 anticipated with 3000- barrels of vegetables mid 

 quantities of condensed milk, stimulants, beet', 

 bandages, etc., and followed by 24 wagon-loads of j 

 stores. The 300 temporary hospitals along the 

 route were all visited by agents of the Commission, ] 

 and 17,000 meals were given at feeding stations in 

 the rear. 



This sanitary work in the Western armies received 

 much more favor and aid from the military officers, 

 high and low, than did the corresponding labors in i 

 the East. The army of the Potomac was better ; 

 supplied, but the help of the Commission was wel- 

 come in frequent emergencies. After Frederickshurg 

 a relief station, opened at Acquia Creek, cared for 

 600 men the first night. After Chancellorsville both 

 the regular and the sanitary supplies were inter- j 

 copied. Immense preparations were made for the 

 battle of Gettysburg, and great services rendered. 

 Competent agents, stationed at convenient points in 

 Maryland and Pennsylvania, were in constant com- 

 munication with those who accompanied the army 

 on its march, and whose wagons were kept supplied 

 from Washington ; during the battle these were 

 filled and returned from Fredericksburg, and much 

 help given to the field hospitals. Two of the lead- 

 ing agents were caught by the enemy's cavalry, 

 taken to Libby Prison, and there confined for some 

 months : the Confederates rarely spared the Com- 

 mission, though their wounded prisoners were cared 

 for like Union soldiers. In the long list of articles 

 distributed during ten days after the battle, some 

 of the items are 11,000 Ibs. of poultry and mutton, 

 6430 Ibs. of butter, 20,000 Ibs. of ice, 12,900 loaves, 

 8500 dozen eggs, 12,500 Ibs. condensed milk, 3800 Ibs. 

 beef-soup, 7000 Ibo. farinaceous food, 6800 Ibs. white 

 sugar, over 7500 drawers, over 10,000 shirts, nearly 

 60QG paUa socks, 10,000 towels and napkins, 7000 



tin basins and cups, 2300 sponges, 1.500 combs, 250 

 Ibs. castile soap, 300 yards oil silk, and 3500 fans. 

 In this humane activity nothing seems to have been 

 overlooked, every need and comfort anticipated. 



In the battles of the Wilderness 200 relief agents 

 were busy with the woundud, and 200 tons of slorcs 

 conveyed by two steamboats, two barges, and 44 

 wagons. In two months 8515,000 were received and 

 expended for the army iu Virginia. Malaria was 

 resisted on th'j lower coast, and the health of the 

 troops before Charleston fortified. At Fort Wagner 

 the troops saluted the Sanitary Hag, in recognition 

 ot benefits derived from supplies of ice and anti-scor- 

 butics. At Olustee, Fla., the government had 

 made no adequate provision of medical supplies, and 

 the Commission filled the gap. At Newberne and 

 Beaufort all the agents except Dr. Page, the in- 

 spector, were attacked by 3'ellow fever, but he and 

 Dr. Hand, the medical director, battled successfully 

 with the pestilence. Drs. Crane and Blake rendered 

 great services at New Orleans, and distributed far 

 and wide the supplies sent down the river by Dr. 

 Newbcrry. Messrs. Ingraham and Hoot were 

 visitors in the hospitals at Nashville, through which 

 100,000 men passed in six months. 



The agents of the Commission were themselves 

 exposed to the evils they sought to counteract or 

 mitigate, to the direct or indirect perils of war, to 

 contagion, hardship, exposure, and often to capture, 

 wounds, or death on the field of battle. Their faith- 

 ful humanity and patriotic devotion in ministering 

 to the comfort, health, and life of the defenders of 

 the nation shall not be forgotten. By their means 

 thousands who might also have filled unknown 

 graves were restored to home and friends, and 

 multitudes enabled longer to serve their country iu 

 the. field. In nothing does our Christian civilization 

 contrast more happily with the brutality and in- 

 difference of former times than in its efforts to 

 mitigate the horrors and assuage the sufferings of 

 war ; and of these noble endeavors none have been 

 more illustrious than those of the United States 

 Sanitary Commission. 



Its voluminous archives are preserved in the 

 Astor Library, New York. Many of its reports 

 possess historical and scientific value. Its official 

 Jlifitory has been written (1800) by Dr. Charles J. 

 Still^, LL.D., afterwards provost of the University 

 of Pennsylvania, and more briefly by its president, 

 Dr. Bellows, in Johnson's Cyclopaedia. See also 

 Katharine P. Wormley's The Other Side of the War 

 (1888), and Gen. P. R. De Trohriand's Four Years 

 with the Arnt;/ of the Potomac (1888). For the work 

 of its kindred association, The U. S. Christian Com- 

 mission, see that title. (F. M. B.) 



SANITARY SCIENCE is a knowledge of the 

 laws for the preservation of health, and practical 

 hygiene is the art of so applying those laws as will 

 best attain that end. This art THIS been practised 

 from time immemorial : the ancients worshipped at 

 the shrine of the goddess Hygeia, the alchemists 

 sought for the " elixir of life," Moses gave to the 

 Jews a hygienic code, and Hippocrates, the father 

 of medicine, summed up the knowledge of his day 

 in the following six articles: "Air, aliment, exer- 

 cise and rest, sleep and wakefulness, repletion and 

 evacuation, the passions and affections of the 

 mind." But in more modern times the study of 

 physiology and pathology opened new fields of re- 

 search, and as knowledge was gained of the func- 

 tions of the various organs of the human economy, 

 the scientific investigation of the laws for the pre- 

 servation of health was made possible. In still 

 later years chemistry and microscopy have greatly 

 added to this knowledge, until now we have a more 

 thorough understanding, not only of the laws which 

 govern the life and health of the individual, but a'.so 

 [ of the invisible yet potent agencies which cause 



