The National tribune., 1897-10-14
ANDERSONVILLE.
Continued from first pa.e)

NOG OHiy SO, Dut tneSe unfortunate
prisoners were like men forcibly confined
and crowded upon ship tossed about
on stormy ocean, without rudder,
without compass, without a guiding
star, and without,,a3ny apparent bound
airy or end to their voyage and they
reflected, in their steadily-increasing
miseries, the distressed condition and
waning fortunes Of devastated and
bleeding country, which was compelled,
in justice to her own unfortunate sons,
to hold these men in this most distress
ing captivity.
81 saw nothing in the scurvy which
prevailed so universally at Anderson
vile at all different from this disease
as described by various standard writers
The mortality was no greater than that
which has afflicted hundred ships upon
long voyages, and it did not exceed the
mortality which has upon more than one
occasion, and in a much shorter period
of time, annihilated large armies and
desolated beleaguered cities.
elk. Drugs exercised but littx IL
fuence over the progress and fatal ter
mination of chronic diarrhea and dysen-
terry in the Military Prison and Hospital
at Andersonville, chiefly because the
proper form of nourishment (milk, rice,
vegetables, anti scorbutics, and nourish-
ing animal and vegetable soups was not
issued, and could not be procured in
sufficient quantities for these sick pris-
oners.
"Opium allayed pain and checked
the bowels temporarily, but the frail
dam was soon swept away, and the pa
tient appeared to be but little better, if
not the worse, for this merely palliative
treatment. The root of the difficulty
could not be reached by drugs; nothing
short of the wanting elements Of nutri-
ton would have tended in any manner
to restore the tone of the digestive sys-
tenn and of all the wasted and degener-
ated organs and tissues.
"My opinion to this effect was ex-
pressed most decidedly to the medical
officers in charge of these unfortunate
men. The correctness of this view was
sustained by the healthy and robust
condition Of the paroled prisoners, who
received an extra ration, and who were
able to make considerable sums by
trading, and who supplied themselves
with liberal and varied diet.
X. The fact that hospital gangrene
appeared in the Stockade first, and
originated spontaneously, without any
previous contagion, and occurred spo-
radically all over the Stockade and
Prison Hospital, was proof positive that
this disease will arise whenever the con-
ditions of crowding, filth, foul air, and
bad diet are present.
"The exhalations from the Hospital
and Stockade appeared to exert their
effects to considerable distance outside
Of these localities The origin of gam
creme among these prisoners appeared
clearly to depend in great measure upon
the state of the general system induced
by diet, exposure, neglect of personal
cleanliness, and by various external
noxious influences. The rapidity of the
appearance and action of the gangrene
depended upon the powers and state of
the constitution, as we'll as upon the in
tensity Of the poison in the atmosphere,
or upon the direct application of poison
Gus matter to the wounded surface.
"XI. A scorbutic condition of the
system appeared to favor the origin of
foul ulcers, which frequently took on
true hospital gangrene.
"Scurvy and gangrene frequently
existed in the same individual. In such
cases, vegetable diet with vegetable
acids would remove the scorbutic con-
dition without curing the hospital gan
creme.
1--WE have, according to the extent of
the deficiency of certain articles of food,
every degree Of scorbutic arrangement,
from the most fearful deprivation of the
blood and the perversion Of every func-
ton subserved by the blood, to those
slight arrangements which are scarcely
| dlstlnguishable from state of health.
I'VE are as yet ignorant of the true
nature of the changes Of the blood and
tissues in scurvy, and wide field for
investigation is open for the determine
ton of the characteristic changes
physical, chemical and physiological
of the blood and tissues, and of the secre-
tons and excretions of scurvy. Such
inquiries would be of great value in
their bearing upon the origin of hospital
gangrene. Up to the present war, the
results Of chemical investigations upon
the pathology of the blood in scurvy
were not only contradictory, but meager,
and wanting in that careful detail of the
cases from which the blood was abb
stracted which would enable us to ex-
plain the cause of the apparent discre-
panciss in different analyses.
XII. Gangrenous spots, followed by
rapid destruction Of, tissue, appeared in
some cases in which there had been no
previous or existing wound or abrasion;
and without such well-established facts,
it might be assumed that the disease was
propagated from. one patient to another
IN every case, either by exhalations from