The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-10-04
Thousands of Volunteers Stricken
at Puerto Rico.
MUST BE RETURNED HOME
DELIBERATELY EXPOSE THEM
SELVES TO GET RELEASE.
Men Are Homesick and Pining For
observation-disclosures Much Greater
nong the Volunteers Than
Among the Regulars-High Per
centage In Some Regiments.

| Ponce, Puerto Rico, Sept. 27.-(Copy-
righted, 1898, by the Associated Press.)
lit is the weI-grounded and almost
unanimous opinion of the medical staff
of the American army of Puerto Rico
! that the condition of the volunteer
/ forces here necessitates their removal
north.
Sickness is increasing and mas peen
| Increasing during the past three weeks
at an alarming rate. Today the sick
report shows over 2,7O0 in hospitals or
in quarters, out of a total command of
! 10, 600 men; that is, over 20 per cent OF
| the troops are on the sick list. Ihls,
| however does not mean that there IS
! an effective strength of 1000 men. Inc
soldiers discharged from the hospitals
as fit for duty are in nine cases out OIL
ten incapable of service, and II ordered
on duty are almost invariably back in
the hospitals within a few days. Inc
medical officers have found that the
convalescents do not and seemingly
cannot recover their strength in this
climate and for this reason they are
! being sent north as rapidly as possible,
several hundred leaving every week.
Tomorrow over 500 will go on the OBJ
dam and the Relief.
1t is a significant fact that there is
disparity between the sickness in the
volunteers and regular commands In
the two regular infantry regiments,
the Nineteenth and the Eleventh, the
sick average is only about 10 per cent
While in the volunteer reg1mentS-the
Sixth Massachusetts, First New York
engineers, Fourth Ohio, Third Illinois,
First Kentucky, Third Wisconsin and
Sixteenth Pennsylvania, 1t averages "a
per cent. In the last named two,
where the conditions are the worst, the
sick report today shows percentage
of 46 in the Sixteenth Pennsylvania
and AZ in the Third Wisconsin. Over
half of these two regiments, which,
with the First Kentucky, comprise
General Ernst's brigade, are unfit for
duty, and yesterday, when General
Ernst moved his headquarters to
Aibonito, on the summit of the noun
tain range it was found that 1t would
be impossible for the brigade to follow.
The command is PROSTATE where it is.
Undoubtedly the wide disparity be-
tween the percentage of sickness in
the volunteers and regular organiza-
tons is largely due to the fact that the
latter are better able to care for them
selves. Most Of them are veterans,
who understand the rules of health in
camp, and their officers, from the very
outset, have enforced with unerring
energy the sanitary regulations so
necessary for the preservation of
health. But more than that, the regu-
lars are making soldering a business.
They did not enlist for the war, but
for five years, and they look upon
their assignment for service in Puerto
Rico philosophically and make the best
of the situation.
JOMECTCK UOT .TTNTEERG
The volunteers, on the other hand,
enlisted for two years, but with the al
most universal expectation that they
would be mustered out when the war
closed. Almost 70 a. man they desire
to go home, and ever since the protocol
was signed they have lived in the daily
hope of being recalled. For days they
have talked of nothing else. Homesick-
ness destroyed their spirits and made
them easy victims to the nlalarial eli
matte conditions. 1t is said that some
of them who did fall sick naturally,
actually exposed themselves to the wet,
or ate freely of tropical fruits, despite
the regulations, that they might be-
come i'll and be sent home. Some, it is
alleged, even feigned sickness, and
quite a number Of these succeeded in
their designs.
The other day a number of men from
one of the regiments who had been Or
dered home as convalescents came into
Ponce miles ahead of their wagon train,
singing, laughing and making merry at
the prospect of their release. Some were
college athletes. They appeared to be
more capable of service than hundreds
of the soldiers who remained, and one
of the regular army officers in Ponce,
upon looking over them, suggested
ironically, that they should stop at
New York on their way home and pick
up a few prizes for throwing the ham
mer, putting the shot, ETC., at the Gale
DOMAIN games.
The weekly health report of a week
ago shows 365 cases of typhoid fever,
565 cases of malaria, one case OF small
pox ard 1,450 cases of climatic fever,
diarrhoea, etc. Since then about 800
cases have been added to the list.
INCREASE IN TYPHOID.
The worst feature of the situation is
the steady increase in the number of
typhoid fever cases, which today reach
ed over 400. For a time it appeared
probable that the typhoid fever i'll the
army most of which is alleged to have
come from Camps Thomas and Alger
originally would be stamped out, but
about three weeks ago new cases began
to appear at an alarming rate. Major
SnONOen ana MS associates 40 not De-
lieVe that there is a new source of con-
tagion, but rather that the cases are
due to infection from old cases.
A few days ago the whole city of
Ponce narrowly escaped being utterly
depopulated by a typhoid epidemic.
Some of the men of the First Kentucky,
who are camped near the aqueduct
which carries the water supply to the
city, in order to secure good water close
at hand, tapped the aqueduct. They
broke through the masonry, and for
whole day were hosting water in buck
cts from the aqueduct. Fortunately,
Major Snowden discovered the man
hole while on tour of inspection the
next day. He was Mortified at the dis
coVery. Typhoid fever existed in the
First Kentucky regiment and the water
supply of the city might have been con-
taminated with typhoid germs. He or
dered the manhole stopped immedi-
diatelV