344 surgeons' reports — Pennsylvania — twenty-first district. 



Our manufacturing interests, though tliey cannot compete in maguitnde with those of many otlier 

 sections of the country, yet give employment to many persons. The principal manufactures are 

 those of iron, machinery, woolen goods, salt, lumber, &c. The usual professional and mechanical 

 avocations are pursued in about the same ratio as in other prosperous rural districts. 



Our contiguity to the mountains doubtless renders our ])eople liable to a greater prevalence of 

 such diseases as result from sudden changes of temperature than would occur among a peoi)Ie 

 more removed from this cause. Hence the prevalence of rheumatism, which, in many cases assum- 

 ing a chronic character, disqualifies for military service. The number of persons who are exemjjt 

 on account of this disease is scarcely a true index of its prevalence, as it does not disqualify unless 

 it has produced " positive change of structure, wasting of the atlected limb, or putliness or distortion 

 of the joints;" and these results are rare during the military age compared with their Ireqnency 

 after the age of fortytive. The statistics show a ratio to those exempted for all other causes under 

 the drafts of 1801 of 38 per 1,000. 



To the same atmospheric vicissitudes may be traced the great prevalence of acute diseases of 

 the lungs and air-passages; the former terminating in "developed tuberculosis,'' and the latter in 

 chronicbronchitisof so serious a character as to disqualify lor military sei vice. I find from the same 

 statistics the ratio for developed tuberculosis was 70 per 1 ,000. What proportion of those exempted 

 for "organic disease of internal organs" may be traced to the same cause I am not informed, but 

 doubtless to a very large extent. 



There is a popular belief current here that a prevailing strong east wind for two or three days 

 during the spring or early summer mouths will i)rove not only destructive to tender vegetation, 

 such as the young fruits and garden-vegetables, and even cereals if they are in blossom, but is also 

 a fiuitful cause of disease in the human subject. The first ])art of this ojiinion 1 know to be coirect, • 

 and I am not quite sure but what there is some foundation for the latter. During a practice of 

 tilteen years in Uuioutown, Fayette County, which lies six miles west of the summit of Chestnut 

 Eidge, and at that point has an elevation of from 2,500 to 2,800 feet above tide-water, and of from 

 1,000 to 1,900 feet above the town, 1 was frequently impressed with the truth of the prevailing 

 jjopular belief on this subject. Patients whose vital powers were very much exhausted by acute or 

 chrouic disease were generally more depressed, and their symptoms worse, during the prevalence of 

 that wind. Its effect on vegetation is the result of a hygrometrical condition of the air. The air 

 leaves the sea-coast laden with the usual quantity of moisture; but, on reaching the higher altitudes 

 of the successive mountain-summits, its tenq)erature is lowered, and it deposits its moisture on those 

 elevated wgious. When, on passing the last of the mountain-ridges, it debouches into the valleys to 

 the west of them, and is again warmed by tbe rays of the sun and the warm air of the valley, the 

 usual quantity of moisture for air of such a tenqjerature must be again supplied, and it consequently 

 absorbs it from everything that will yield it with which it comes in contact. It thus levies its 

 assessment on the succulent vegetation, which withers and dies, and becomes almost pulverizable 

 in a few hours under this desiccating wind. In what way it produces its deleterious effects on the 

 invalid, whether by electrical action in depressing the vital powers, or by parching the cutaneous 

 surface and membranes of the air-passages, I do not know. 



The exemptions under the other sections of paragraph 85 will not probably exceed the ratio in 

 other districts. 



The changes I would suggest in that paragrajih would be to make its provisions correspond 

 more closely with the Army Ifegulations lor the examination and acceptance of recruits. It seems 

 but reasonable that the recruits and conscripts, who are to be placed under the same general regu- 

 lations and perform the same duties, should be accepted or rejected by the same standard. 



Under i)resent regulations, the surgeon of the board of enrollment has frequently found himself 

 placed under the disagreeable necessity of nyecting a man as a reeiuit, and in a short time after- 

 ward holding him to service as a dratted man, thus depriving him of the advantages, both pecuniary 

 and in the ^selection of his regiment, that are possessed by the recruit. Such action subjects the 

 surgeon to the severest censure. 



Again, some men whom he holds to service in strict compliance with the instructions of this 

 paragrajjh, on being sent lorward to tlie general rendezvous, are again examined by a boaid of 

 iuspectois, who, acting under other instructions, discharge them as unfit for service. By what right 



