HYGIENE IN THE ARMY. 



499 



1855 to 1857 he was engaged in the engineer- 

 ing operations in Newport harbor, R. I., and 

 constructed and repaired many important light- 

 house structures on the coast. In 1857 he was 

 ordered to Key "West, where, for five years, he 

 assisted in the construction of fortifications and 

 other defensive works on that island, receiving 

 his captaincy while serving there, July 1st, 

 1859. It was chiefly through his instrumental- 

 ity that the forts of Southern Florida were 

 withheld from the Confederates after the war 

 actually commenced. In 1862 he was appoint- 

 ed chief-engineer of the 5th army corps, com- 

 manded by Major-General Banks, and from this 

 duty was relieved and placed on special ser- 

 vice under the Navy Department, in order to 

 superintend the construction of his submarine 

 battery, an invention of his own, which he 

 was sanguine would successfully defeat any 

 naval attacks which might be made by the 

 most powerful fleets upon our harbors. While 

 engaged in making some experiments with this 

 battery, a shell prematurely discharged, imme- 

 diately after which he descended into the 

 caisson, and, in attempting to ascend, being 

 probably overcome by the gas, fell backward, 

 striking his head and causing concussion of the 

 brain, from which he died the following day. 

 Major Hunt was a brother of ex-Governor 

 Washington Hunt of New York, and was a man 

 of great ability and scientific attainments, and a 

 frequent and valued contributor to the trans- 

 actions of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, and to various liter- 

 ary and scientific works of the country. He 

 was a man of sincere patriotism, and thorough- 

 ly conscientious in the discharge of his duties 

 as an officer and as a man. 



HYGIENE IN THE ARMY. The regular 

 army of the United States, before the com- 

 mencement of the present war, seldom num- 

 bering in its ranks more than 12,000 or 13,000 

 | men, and with a medical and hospital service 

 corresponding to its limited numbers, had little 

 need of special rules of hygiene, or the elabora- 

 1 tion of any extensive system of regulating the 

 | health and physical comfort of its forces. But 

 when a volunteer army of more than half a mil- 

 lion of men was suddenly called into existence, 

 men, too, to whom camp life was an entirely 

 new experience, who had for the most part 

 little or no knowledge of the art of cookery, 

 or of the thousand causes of disease which 

 lurked in their new mode of life, in the cli- 

 mate, exposure, over exertion, unsuitable or 

 insufficient food, clothing, &c., it became evi- 

 dent that it required fully as much medical 

 skill and care to prevent disease as to effect a 

 cure when it had made its appearance. The 

 medical department of the Government, aided 

 in this^matter most effectually by the Sanitary 

 Commission, found it necessary to give special 

 instruction to the army surgeons, whether en- 

 gaged in examining recruits or in service on 

 the field or in the hospitals, in matters relat- 

 ing to the hygienic condition of the force ; and 



during the past year, in addition to monographs 

 on particular branches of the subject by subor- 

 dinate medical officers of the army, the ac- 

 complished surgeon-general has, by the most 

 indefatigable industry, found or made leisure 

 to prepare an admirable treatise on " Hygiene 

 in the Military Service." 



The first step in the way of prevention of 

 disease in the army must be taken in the ex- 

 amination of recruits. The ignorance or in- 

 competence of the* examining surgeons in the 

 first two years of the war, and sometimes it is 

 to be found baser motives, led to great abuses 

 in this respect. "Thousands of incapacitated 

 men," says Surgeon-General Hammond, " were, 

 in the early stages of the war, allowed to enter 

 the army, to be discharged after a few weeks' 

 service, most of which had been passed in the 

 hospital. Many did not march five miles be- 

 fore breaking down, and not a few never shoul- 

 dered a musket during the whole time of their 

 service. * * * * Cases of chronic ulcers, 

 varicose veins, epilepsy, and other conditions 

 unfitting men for a military life, came fre- 

 quently under my notice. The recruits were 

 either not inspected at all by a medical officer, 

 or else the examination was so loosely con- 

 ducted as to amount "to a farce. I know of 

 several regiments in which the medical inspec- 

 tion was performed by the surgeon walking 

 down the line and looking at the men 4 as they 

 stood in the ranks." There has been great 

 improvement in these examinations since the 

 autumn of 1862, but even now too many men 

 unfit for the service are smuggled into it, 

 through the lack of vigilance on the part of 

 the inspector. The enlistment of weak, mal- 

 formed, or sickly soldiers is a great crime 

 against the service. The soldier, to be capable 

 of serving his country effectively in the field, 

 requires not only sound health but the ability to 

 endure fatigue, hardships, exposure, and vicis- 

 situdes of climate with impunity. To admit 

 into the ranks a soldier who does not possess 

 this ability, inflicts upon the army not only the 

 probable loss of his services, very often at a 

 time when they are most needed, but, if he is 

 consigned to a hospital, requires the care of 

 others for his nursing, who might otherwise be 

 employed in the national defence. The mini- 

 mum age at which volunteers are received 

 (eighteen years, and in many cases by the con- 

 nivance of examining officers, below that age) 

 is too young for serviceable soldiers. These 

 young recruits break down under the severe 

 marches and privations of the camp, and are 

 more liable to those terrible scourges of the 

 army, diarrhoea and dysentery, as well as to a 

 fatal termination of wounds than those who 

 enter the array at twenty or over. The height 

 of the recruit (our minimum limit is five feet 

 three inches, and there is no maximum, as there 

 should be), the capacity of the chest, vigor of 

 the system, and general aptitude for the sol- 

 dier's profession, are all points of great im- 

 portance, and must be carefully examined by 





