340 surgeons' reports — Pennsylvania — seventeenth district. 



time, however, these lawless bands were dispersed by the capture of some and the routing of tlie 

 reuuiiniler. 



In assigning reasons why any particular diseases have disqualified a greater ratio per thousand 

 from military service, I first mention the malarial influence prevalent in parts of this district, as 

 above adverted to. Although it is now several years since this agent ceased to exercise a control- 

 ling influence over every form of disease on the Juniata Itiver, its baneful ctt'ects are yet percepti- 

 ble. Men who were prostrated by a recurrence of bilious fevers several years in succession suflered 

 constitutiouiiUy, and a large proportion of drafted men taijen from localities thus iul'ected were 

 exempt under section 9, i)aragraph 80, on account of permanent physical disability, the conse- 

 quence of functional or organic diseases of tlie liver, spleen, or kidneys. 



Tuberculosis is developed sometimes under the enervating influence of bilious fever, although 

 it is by no means confined to malarial portions of this district, lor it prevails in the mountain-ranges 

 and in the valleys, and is the cause of many exemptions. Tiie only irnitful source of tuberculosis 

 worthy of notice is in the blacksmith-shops in Aitoona, to wliich 1 have already adverted; also iu 

 the sub-district in which intermarriages of relatives have beeu practiced for several generations 

 successively, as above stated, it is deeply rooted. 



In the lumbering parts of the Seventeenth District, a greater proportion of hernia prevails th.an 

 iu other localities, which is readily accounted for by the fact that men engaged in clearing the land 

 and removing heavy timber must necessarily do much heavy lifting, thus exposing themselves to 

 the danger of this disability. In the same localities and in the neighborhood of charcoal-furnaces, 

 a large proportion of men are disabled on account of extensive, deep, and adhereut cicatrices on 

 the lower extremities, the result of deep incised wounds from the ax in cutting timber. 



Sawyers working on saw-mills Irequently have their hands mutilated or their fingers removed 

 by the saw, thus discjuaJifying them for service. On the railroads, nuuiy are disabled on account of 

 severe injuries by collisions of cars, explosions of boilers, cars running ofl' the track, and other 

 mishaps incident to the working of the road. These accidents produce almost every variety of 

 injury in the form of Iractures, dislocations, mutilations of limbs, contusions, burns, scalds, &c. 

 Among this class of injuries we find many men who have lost a leg or foot, arm or hand, or who 

 have hands so mutilated that they are proper subjects of exemption. In our large rolling-mills, 

 forges, furnaces, and ax-tacitories, where heavy machinery is used, the same class of injuries are 

 found, produced by similar causes. 



In paragraph 85, Eevised Regulations, there is, in my opinion, but little that is liable to objec- 

 tion. It, however, I were to specify any section on which auiendinent could be made advantageously 

 to the Government, I would mention No. C. This section gives developed tuberculosis alone as 

 sufficient cause for exemption, and it has been to me, in some cases, a source of embarrassment. 

 Drafted men laboring under evident sym[)tomr, of inciiiient tuberculosis, with no complication of 

 any other viscus, were so manifestly unfit for military duty that it would have been absolute loss 

 to the Grovernment and cruelty to the men to hold them to service, and yet section 6 required that 

 the tuberculosis should be dvrdopcd to authorize the surgeon to exempt. My experience has beeu 

 tiiat after (consigning iulmi thus situated to the Army, in most cases they Imve broken down and gone 

 into the hospitals before they were acclimated to their new locations, or became accustomed to 

 camp-life. As this section stands, we must either violate occasionally our own convictions of duty 

 to the Government ami the men by holtling such to service, or disobey the instructions of this 

 section by exempting. 



In section 15, chronic purulent otorrliuia is given as cause for exemption. During the i>rogres3 

 of examinations since our organization as a board, I have seen many cases'of this infirmity; and 

 although the disease uiidoubte Uy unfits some for military duty by the ofl'ensiveness and abundance 

 of the discharge, a majority of well-marked cases were by no means disqualified by this cause. I 

 would suggest that chronic purulent otorrhoea be regarded as cause for exemption only when the 

 purulent discharge is very offensive and uhiindtuit and the disease inveterate. 



In section .'!.J, loss of ungual |)halaux of right thumb is given as cause for exemi)tion. This, iu 

 my opinion, should not be regarded as of sufficient importance to exempt a man otherwise able- 

 bodied. In our lumber-districts, several men were drafted who had lost this iihalanx by tlie acci- 

 dental cutting of the circular saw in saw-mills, yet Ihe full use of the thumb was net in any per- 



