4 DKriNITION or TERMS NOMENCLATURE OF DISEASES. 



Patriotic feelings continiied to influence many to enlist, while others preferred the 

 credit of volunteering- to the possibility of compulsory service under the draft. The 

 most efl:ective inducements, however, were the large bounties ottered by the State 

 and General Governments, which amounted to fully six hundred millions of dollars 

 during the war. In the tables, volunteers, whether rejected or accepted, are designated 

 as " JRecniifs:' 



Drafted men, if found unlit for military service, were spoken of in the reports and 

 tables as " cxcnqjted," and if otherwise as ^'not exempted." The same terms are also 

 applied to enrolled men. Recruits and substitutes whose enlistment was voluntary 

 are described ns '^aceejited" ov ^'■rejected." The phrase ^^ found fit for service" applies 

 to either or to all of the four classes. 



The desimiation " Co/orecZ iliew," intended to describe exclusivelv the ncOTO and 

 his hybrids, should not, perhaps, be admitted in scientific terminology on account of 

 its obvious lack of precision, and its equal applicability to the aboriginal inhabitants, 

 as well as to more than one foreign race found amono- us. Usag-e, however, in the 

 United States has so confined the term to the single meaning, and the reports upon 

 which these tables are based so constantly employ it, that it has been thought best to 

 retain it. Foreigners consulting these tables may need, this explanation. 



Nomenclature of Diseases. — The nomenclature of diseases adopted in this Avork 

 is, with some necessary modifications, that which "^^ as published by authority of the 

 Royal College of Physicians of London, in 1869J' and which was to a considerable 

 extent based upon the classification of Dr. Farr. The system of the latter had many 

 excellent characteristics, and, indeed, was adopted almost in its entirety as the form for 

 reports from hospitals during the war; but the more recent work of the English college 

 is in many respects its superior. It admits of the arrangement of disease in more 

 clearly-defined subdivisions, and in its classification of general diseases is more in 

 accordance with advanced pathology. It is quite possible to point out some faults in 

 this nosology, but taken as a whole it is the best and most practical yet devised. When, 

 too, it is considered that the English terms are employed, by direction of the registrar- 

 general of England, in the very thorough system of registration which has been in 

 force in that kingdom for over thirty-five years, and that it is also the ofiicial standard 

 for use in the British army and nav}-, it becomes obvious that the opportunity of con- 

 venient comparison renders its employment highly desirable in our army-reports and 

 the medical statistics of civH life." 



In ex))lanation of some peculiarities in the classification of disease in the patho- 

 logical tables of this work, it is to be said that the early retui-ns from examining surgeons 

 were not characterized by the uififormity and precision winch afterward prevailed. In 

 many instances, the causes of exemption were described in such indefinite terms as to 

 render the classification a matter of no slight difficulty, and yet the omission of such 

 returns from the tables would necessaril}' have vitiated the result. The inaccuracies 

 referred to are most observable in the description of diseases of the viscera. Such 



' The iiomeiidalurc of diseafts, drauut iip by a jolit eonmiltce appoUited hij the Royal Coli.egr of Physicians of 

 LOXDOX, {miljerl to dmuiiial rcriswii.) 8vo, Lomlou, 18G9. 



-A recent Older has directed that this iioineiichitHre sh.ill by exclusively employed in the reports of the United 

 States Mia ri Ml' hospitals. 



