surgeons' reports KENTUCKY SIXTH DISTRICT. 377 



this section seemed to nie iliscrimiuatiiig and just. Since then, Lowever, I have found it objec- 

 tionable, because tailing to meet many cases of what I am confident are decided and j;erwaHC)i« disu- 

 hilities. As a matter of aecessity, " total loss of any two fingers of same hand " may do, (such men 

 being better than none,) when the country, as is the case now, lias become well-nigh exhausted of 

 all better material by recruiting and dralting; but, until such is the case, "tot;ll loss of //(f?e.r-_/('))(/t'r 

 of right hand" should exempt. It looks hard to reject a man with this defect as a recruit one day, 

 when he miglit get a bounty to leave with his family, and have the honor of going as a vojunteer, 

 and the next day to accept the same n)an because drafted, without bounty or help for his wife and 

 children, and the thought of conscription staining his honor and manliness every moment of waking 

 consciousness. Suppose a man has lost the first and second phalanges of all the fingers of" the 

 right hand except the little finger, is the hand of any value ? IIow can he hold a gun, finger a car- 

 tridge, or i>ull a trigger? Of what account is a man with total loss of the first and second pha- 

 langes of all the fingers of the left hand °i Such a misfortune leaves him but a mere stump, instead 

 of a hand; nearly, if not quite, useless, unless in case of a trained soldier, for he can neither lift 

 nor grasp anything with facility or to purpose ; yet no exemption is now allowable. Jf there should 

 be permanent contraction of two fingers of the left hand, say the iudex and middle, how could the 

 man support his gun during an engagement, resting, as it would, upon the backs or knuckles of 

 his fingers every time he went to firi>. ? The fingers would become sore and painful, and the longer 

 the fight continued the worse it would be. The barrel of the gun would not rest in an oblong con- 

 cavity open at both ends, but rather upon a convexity, and the thumb and ring-finger would not 

 close around it so as to hold the gun steady. Permanent extension of any two fingers of the same 

 hand would not be quite so bad, but they would be more trouble to him as a soldier (unless he were 

 trained) than he could make himself worth as such to the Army. Ko allowance is made for total 

 loss of the left thumb, yet the loss of the ungual phalanx of the right exempts. Is a man in a 

 worse condition as a soldier for the loss of the umjual phalanx of his right thumb than for the entire 

 loss of the left % 



No allusion is made in this section to deformities oi eiih&v the right or left hand; some of 

 these are hideous. How is the surgeon in such cases to exempt the man ? It is true that section 9 

 would cover such instances of congenital malformation, but it is an awkward way of getting at it. 

 There should be a provision of this kind : " Deformity of one or both hands manifestly inc(q)aei- 

 tating the man for military service." 



Section 34. A man can walk but little, if any, better with the ungual phalanx of either great 

 toe off than he could if he had suffered a total loss. Take off the ungual phalanx, and no part 

 remaining touches the ground in walking. It seems to me, therefore, that it is immaterial, so far 

 as the use of the foot is concerned, whether the ungual phalanx of either great toe is off, or whether 

 the loss is total ; for neither in the one case nor in the other can the man march to do much 

 good. * # » 



The number of recruits that can be examined with accuracy in a day is governed by circum- 

 stances. If the room of the surgeon be kept clear of all interlopers, so that there shall be no 

 noise, talking, or confusion, one hundred can be examined in eight hours or less time. In the 

 examination of substitutes, forty per day would be a good work. Of drafted men, if all who are 

 drafted would come promptly according to notice, seventy or eighty could be examined in a day. In 

 the case of enrolled men, _^/^(/ to «(■.«;<]/ can be gotten through with in a day. * * * 



The fraud most to be guarded against which is practiced by dratted and enrolled men to 

 escape military service is lying in all its varieties, forms, and ])ossibilitics. As a rule, my experi- 

 ence is that but few drafted men will tell the truth if they believe it possible to impose upon the 

 surgeon with a falsehood. Indeed, but two of the whole number drafted in this district, and 

 examined by me, have had the candor and honesty to say frankly that there was nothing whatever 

 the matter with them. The answers of drafted men to all questions propounded are either e\asive 

 equivocations or downright falsehoods. They nearly always come with a heavy batch of aflidavits, 

 carefully and cunningly prepai'ed by some pettifogging dapper case-lawyer. Besides, they gener- 

 ally bring an aflidasit or two from one or more physicians, in many cases awkwardly and buii- 

 gliiigly [irepared, testifying to a most miserable couditioii of health, although the men may look 

 hearty, pluuq), and robust. The lungs, the heart, the bowels, the kidneys, the liver, the bladder, 

 48 



