CONVICT LABOR FOR ROAD WORK. 119 



cases the price is set at $1 per month, per man. In rare instances 

 contract physicians visit the camps in their charge once every day, 

 but more often they come only when called and in many camps the 

 calls do not average more than three or four a month. 



Treatment by Local Physicians Paid by the State. 



At some camps it is deemed expedient to employ local physicians 

 at a fixed price for each visit they are called upon to make. The price 

 ranges from $2 to $5 a visit, depending upon the distance to be 

 traveled. This is an economical arrangement when the sick rate is 

 low and when serious injuries are few. 



FACILITIES FOR THE CARE OF SICK AND INJURED AT THE CAMP. 



It is not intended that prisoners with infectious diseases or other- 

 wise seriously sick or injured shall remain at the camp. Such men 

 are transferred immediately to prison, county, or State farm hospitals 

 as soon as they have been seen by a physician. Only two camps were 

 provided with rooms for the isolation of prisoners who were sick. 

 But at one other camp any man who reported himself sick was kept 

 apart from the other prisoners and fed on a short ration as a matter 

 of pohcy. The superintendent believed that fewer men complained 

 of being ill and that recovery was more rapid when this method was 

 employed. 



One of the New York honor camps, with a population of about 60 

 men from Sing Sing prison, was provided with a two-room hospital. 

 One room was fitted out as a sort of out-patient department where 

 medicines were stored and dispensed and where the records were kept, 

 and an adjoining room contained two beds and was useful both as an 

 examination room and for isolating sick cases. 



Prisoners who are not sick enough to be removed from the camp 

 remain m their bunks in the general sleeping quarters, and in cases 

 where bunks of double width are provided, the sick man is obliged to 

 share the space with his partner. In the camps where the sleeping 

 men are so close to one another as to be in actual contact any disease 

 of an infectious character may be conveyed readily from one to 

 another. 



Many camps are weU equipped with first-aid outfits and a few 

 simple remedies, and some person at the camp, either the superin- 

 tendent or foreman or one of the prisoners, frequently has had 

 enough experience to enable him to render first aid to the injured and 

 to administer medicine. In some States camp superintendents receive 

 a short course of training in first-aid requirements from the prison 

 physicians. In other States no medical or surgical supplies are 

 furnished and those in charge of the camps purchase medicine and 



