The evening times., 1898-10-26
Chickamauga rark-The Truth.

IL will be interesting to read any re-
port the Alger Relief Commission may
make on the general and medical con-
ditions existing at Camp Thomas,
Chickamauga Park where the service
was in the control of a horse doctor who
could not have reached his high office
by reason OF any other than political
or social influence. Interesting, because
even apart from the testimony gathered
by a medical commission appointed by
General Breckenridge which revealed
an appalling state of things, We have
careful paper read before the Lenox
Medical and Surgical Society in New
York. by DR.. II. a. Haubold, assistant
surgeon of the Eighth New York Regi-
ment, and printed in full in the last
weeks issue of the Medical Record. He
made the preliminary statement that
he was still an officer in the volunteer
army and that somewhere in the regu-
lations lit is made an offense of some
gravity to offer criticism of your su
periors in bars. or leaves, or eagles or
stars, or what not" The camp he de-
scribes briefly as follows: Imagine
scant woodland. no underbrush, no
shrubbery; some open held, grassless.
dust-covered, sun-baked; a mudstain-
ed, shallow creek, and its equally mud
stained shallower tributaries-and this
is Chickamauga Park. the domicile of
more than forty thousand men for sew
eral months" 1t is reached from Chat
tanooga, a distance of eleven miles, by
means of a single-track, so-called rapid
troops-cavalry, artillery, and infantry
all rations, supplies, and ordnance
were transported. 1T is the deficiency
of railroad accommodations that was
responsible for the much-talked-of de-
lay in the delivery of the necessary sup
plies" Owing to the nature of the
ground it was impossible to dig trenches
more than three or four feet deep. This
made the digging of new sinks neces-
sary every few days, and as the sur
face space allotted TO each regiment
was small it soon became a serious
question as to where they were to be
dug The nature of the ground, too,
prevented the absorption of the con-
tents of the sinks, and they were wash
ed out by the rains and spread over
large surfaces. This impregnated, and
when typhoid developed. poisoned the
clean-looking water that lay in the
deeper portion of the creek, and which
the men were bound to drink Chick
amauga Creek is the natural drain of
,ba ,,arly and eyarythinp ,lItima talv
reaches il and is carried into the Ten
nessee River. (''Watch Chattanooga
for typhoid fever n6Xt spring" he says.)
The water intended for the men to
drink was led through a six-inch pipe
laId on the surface of the ground. TT
was here daily kissed by a broiling
Georgia sun and always had the tenn
perature of the air. Compare this
warm, nauseous mud soup with the
clear. cool polluted water / have refer
red to and it is easy to see why the
men in their ignorance preferred the
latter"
AS TO the origin of typhoid fever, Dr.
Haubold says. in rebuke of the ignorant
Secretary of War and Senator Hanna
THE various theories held by some tha t
typhoid was caused by the fruits, pies,
etc, vended by hucksters. or the result
of the unframed volunteer sleeping on
the ground, are sufficiently absurd to be
dismissed with this mention The first
cases were imported, and the germ:
were spread partly by the water the
men drank. The flies, also, assisted in