v-f.' 



SURGEONS REPOKTS KENTUCKY — SIXTH UISTKICT. 373 



will deny to tbc last all its usual eflects, though congliiufr, panting, and gasping for breath nndei- 

 very slight exojcise. Men with tiibercnlar deposits \i\\\ deny all disease whatsoever, expand their 

 chests to the utmost, and stiike with their clenched lists under the clavicles to show how perfectly 

 sound they are, while at the same time there is flattening, dullness on percussion, and harsh or 

 tubular respiration. 



Drafted men are as anxious to keep out of the service as recruits are to get into it. They will 

 declare or show all the diseases denied or concealed by recruits, and increase the list by scores and 

 even hundreds. They will either feign disease when none exists, or exaggerate and magnify such 

 disabilities as they may actually have. The surgeon who ex[iects the honest truth from them, and 

 relies upon their statements merely, makes a simpleton of himself. 



Enrolled men appearing before the board for examination are generally pitiable and contemptible ; 

 pitiable for their despicable lack of patriotism and manliness, and contemptible because of their utter 

 destitution of honest purpose and truthfulness. 



Substitutes are largely the scamps and scoundrels of the world. If foreigners, unless Germans, 

 there is no honesty of purpose in them. They will practice, if possible, to the very utmost upon the 

 credulity of the surgeon. He cannot be too rigid or exacting in their examination. When appro- 

 priate exercise before me has developed a hernia, I have seen the man quickly, as if his modesty 

 were abashed by the exposure of the genitals, clap his hands to the parts and dexterously reduce it 

 iu a moment. When I have suspected the ears as being defective, and the truth iu the case has 

 been denied iu every possible way, all doubt has been instantly removed by closing the uostrUs and 

 compelling the man to fill his mouth with air, when the wind has whistled at once through a per- 

 foration in each tympanum. The resources of their frauds are nmucroHs, if not inexhaustible. All 

 that brazen effrontery, lying, and general rascality can do they will attempt. 



Meu who have been in the Army for a time, veterans and natives, more especially if farmers or 

 hard-working mechanics, are mostly honest, as much so perhaps as recruits, and one has but little 

 trouble comparatively with them. 



Experience has taught me that a man to succeed well as au oxamining-surgeon to a board of 

 enrollment must be absolutely incredulous ; must be cautious, watchful, sharp, shrewd, cunning, 

 and quick. His whole nature should be made up of positive elements, and those of the strongest 

 character. He must be a man of icill and purpose, with decision of character as firm and unbend- 

 ing as a column of granite; otherwise he will or can do the Government no good, will dishonor 

 his own noble profession, and be nothing but a mere top, whirled at the will and by the dexterity 

 of every iinfit recruit, sound drafted man, and rascally substitute. 



Besides these iutellectual and moral qualities, the surgeon must have a competent knowledge of 

 anatomy, physiology, and pathology, or he wiil grope in the dark contiiuially, and his decisions, 

 instead of being the result of enlightened judgment, will be nothing but bungling guesses or vague 

 and ill-defined conjectures. 



The entire number of men examined by me, as nearly as can be ascertained, is about six thou- 

 sand. This number embraces drafted men, recruits, substitutes, and enrolled men, both white and 

 colored. 



This district is one hundred, or possibly one hundred and twenty, miles in length from east to 

 west in a straight line from one extreme point to the other, and sixty-five miles broad in the widest 

 ))ortion from north to south. The north side, following the course of .the stream, lies upon the 

 Ohio Eiver for a distance of full two hundred miles. Two rivers, both heading southward, the 

 Licking and the Kentucky, one in the eastern third of the district and the other in the western, ruu 

 northward and empty into the Ohio about eighty miles apart. The counties composing the terri- 

 tory thus generally outlined are Kenton, Campbell, Bracken, Pendleton, Harrison, Grant, Boone, 

 Gallatin, Carroll, and Trimble. The face of the country is in a few favored portions level or gently 

 rolling, but generally it is hilly or broken, especially along the rivers and the numerous smaller 

 streams emptying into them. Though populous, the country is largely and thickly wooded. It is 

 almost universally underlaid with limestone. 



The prevalent diseases are typhoid, intermittent, remittent, and bilious fevers; pneumonia and 

 pleurisy in the early spring and late fall, and during the winter when sudden changes take place: 

 rheumatism, nearly always arising from wet and cold ; phthisis, scrofula, dyspepsia, fuuctioual and 



