surgeons' reports OHIO EIGHTEENTH DISTRICT. 421 



a very little above it, are almost without exception boys of Atnericaii birth. Recruits of all other 

 nationalities have, aceordinj; to my ex[)erieuce, been far more uniformly persons of mature age. 



In regard to the negro, I feel quite incompetent to form an opinion of any value. 1 have 

 examined but few more than one hundred colored men. I have thought ventral hernia somewhat 

 peculiarly ])revalent aniong them, and that they had in some instances suffered with unusual 

 severity from venereal disease. It would seem reasonable to suppose that a race of men inured to 

 labor and accustomed to plain food, and unaccustomed to comforts and luxuries, would be well 

 adapted to bear the fatigues and exposures of a military life. Medical men who have served in 

 the held and in the hospital would, in my opinion, be better able to give information on this point 

 than those who have seen no service in either. 



The experience of the board of enrollment in this distri(;t io clearly that the enrollment-law 

 as it now exists is not j'c'xa an efficient means of rei)lenisliing the Army. Its principal, I might 

 almost say, its only value, consists in its acting as a stimulant to volunteering. Estimating the 

 enrollment-law thus, it has seemed to me that its efficiency might be increased by introducing into 

 it a provision that when a draft is ordered, a reasonable time, say ninety days or even more, should 

 be allowed for the sub-districts to till their respective quotas by voluntary enlistment, and then, if 

 the quota was not filled by such enlistments, and a drait was made, every acceptable drafted man 

 should be held to persoiml service. I apprehend that with such a provision in the enlistment- 

 law, no draft would ever need to be made. 



During the past season, from motives of economy I presume, the Department relied, for the 

 correctness of the eurollmeiil, upon the voluntary assistance of township-trustees and military 

 committees, rather than upon paid enroliing-oflficers. This makes the men charged with the mat- 

 ter each solicitous for the welfare of his own sub-district, and tends to make the corrections consist 

 merely of striking off aliens, men over forty -five years of age, non-residents, and those who are 

 l)hysically disabled, and scarcely at all in adding such as should be added. If the experience of 

 boards of enrollment generally coincides with ours in regarding the use of such agents as useless, 

 it will be for the Department to devise a remedy. 



There is one other particular in regard to which I feel no delicacy whatever in expressing my 

 opinion, certainlj' no such delicacy as I should have felt in regard to expressing it while 1 was 

 holding and discharging the duties of the office of surgeon of a board of enrollment, and that is 

 in regard to the insufficiency of the salary. A physician and surgeon of reputable standing, and 

 of such experience in his profession as would fit him to discharge the duties of the office, would 

 not be able to accept it without i)ecuniary sacrifice, unless his residence were at the town where the 

 district headquarters were established. When, however, the district headquarters are at a distance 

 from his place of residence, (in ujy own case the distance is thirty miles,) his acceptance of the 

 office involves the sacrifice of his business, temporarily at least, and subjects him to the necessity 

 of absence from his family. Then, too, surgeons are not quite infallible, and one man may easily 

 pass a recruit whom another and perhaps abler man may reject, and the consequence will be the 

 reduction by stoppage of a salary already inadequate. 



A part of the time since I have had the office, the actual gold value of the monthly pay has 

 been less than forty dollars per month, and that for discharging the duties of a very delicate and 

 really very responsible office, an office whose duties it is not easy to discharge with entire fidelity 

 to the Government without rendering one's self in some degree obnoxious to the people of the dis- 

 trict. 



An office whose duties are so important to the Government, so delicate in their nature, and so 

 difficult to discharge, ought in my judgment to receive a more liberal compensation than the law 

 awards it. The office seems to me equal in responsibility to that of a regimental surgeon on active 

 duty in the field, and should be rewarded with an equal amount of pay and allowances. 



The salary now is the same which the commissioner of enrollment receives; bat as no I'ccuniary 

 Uahility iittiiches to him, practically his is the better pay, while its duties, being mainly clerical, 

 are far less arduous in the performance. 



II. C. BEARDSLEE, 

 Surgeon Board of Enrollment Eighteenth District of Ohio. 

 Cleveland, Ohio, May I.">, 1805. 



