252 SUEGEONS' KEPORTS — KEW VOKK NINTH DISTRICT, 



panes of glass in the u jiidows. Such were tbe (lacking) accommodatious iu the provost-inarsbal's 



* * 



ofiBce of tbe eigbtb congressional district of the cit^- of New York. 



WM. 0. ItOEERTS, 

 Suryion Board of Enrollment EhjUth District of Neic York. 

 New York City, June 28, 1865. 



NEW YOEK— NINTH DISTRICT. 



Extracts from reiwrt of Dr. W. H. Thomson. 



The number of persons subjected to my inspection siuce I assumed the duties of surgeon of 

 the board of enrollment on May 1, 1863, is, accordiug to my records, 6,758. Of this number, 1,251) 

 were drafted men; 1,674, enrolled men who claimed exemption from military service on the ground 

 of physical disability; and 3,825 were volunteers or substitutes. 



My experience as examining-surgeon, however, embraces also similar duties to the above per- 

 formed by me, under an appointment by the governor of the State of New York, iu the year 1862, 

 when I examined 8,700 voluuteers and 1,550 persons claiming exemption from the draft. This 

 makes a total of 17,008 persons inspected by me as surgeon during the war. 



My district comprises that part of New York City lying north of Fortieth street, and consisting of 

 the Twelfth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-second wards ; it contains a little more than one-half the area 

 of Manhattan Island. Over a considerable portioi! of this district intermittent fever of a mild 

 type prevails. The population in some parts, along both the North and East Elvers, is very dense, 

 and composed mostly of Irish, who live crowded iu close and filthy tenement-houses.' Further up, 

 in the neighborhood of the Central Park, is also a numerous Irish population, living in huts and 

 shanties among the rocks, iu the future aristocratic quarter of the city ; and tbe health of these 

 people, owing to their habits, the absence of drainage, and prevalence of malaria, is no better thau 

 in the tenement-houses. North of them is a considerable population of Germans, engaged iu 

 vegetable and truck-farm cultivation. The middle of tbe island, between Third and Seventh 

 avenues, contains the best population of the city : aud the same may be said of the extreme north, 

 on tbe Bloomingdale road, at Manbattanville, and Fort Washington, neighborhoods composed 

 largely of the suburban villas and residences of tbe rich. 



Tlie floating character of the greater part of tbe poor population of our district rendered the 

 operations of tbe draft among them almost nugatory. So soon as they saw their names among tbe 

 drafted in tbe evening-paper, hundreds of them promptly removed, and it would have taken many 

 months to find them again, owing to tbe facility with which they could exchange their shanties 

 and tenement-lodgings for places in Brooklyn, Staten Island, New Jersey, as well as down town 

 and yet iu each case"be no further removed from the business-sections thau when above Forty- 

 second street. 



For reasons probably connected with tbe feeding of their animals, a great many of tbe carmen 

 of the city live in this district, besides porters and laborers on the Central Park. There is, likewise, 

 a large body of Irish quarry men employed in blasting stone at Weeba wken, for the Russ Pavement 

 Company, and who were prominent in tbe riots of 1SG3. There is also the part of tbe island where 

 most of the building is going on, so that many carpenters and masons are to be found residing iu 

 tlie district. The depots of all the city-railroads arc also above Fortieth street, and there are^ 

 besides, several large foundries and stone-cutting works. 



The common character, therefore, of heavy work iu the pursuits of the laboring population 

 brought to my notice as surgeon may account for what I considered a large proportion, among the 

 causes of exemption or rejection, of cases of hernia and liactures or injuries of limbs. Cut, on the 

 other hand, I have been struck with tlie uumber of persons among tbe better classes, and native 

 Americans, with weak constitution, deficient girth of chest, aud slender jjAysigjfc, especially among 

 the younger meu. Tiie contrast, in this respect, with what I had noted in American country- 

 recruits in lS(i2 is so marked that I have been led to consider city -life in New York as exerting an 

 unfavorable inliuence on i»hysical development, especially in children; lor tbe results iu my experi- 



