The San Francisco call., 1898-04-22
LET THE SICK BE REMEMBERED.

THE CALLS interviews with many citizens
 yesterday the subject of sanitary work aux
 Hilary to the hospital corps of the regular army disclose the necessity for timely organization to care for the sick
 In our Civil War soldiers fighting under la miliar physical conditions, in climate to which they were native, yet nearly million Union soldiers and half million Confederates died who never felt a wound. Of annual pension payment of $I4Sooo,- oco at least half is for permanent disability ensuing upon camp diseases and not for wounds received in battle If timely had been taken to supple ment the work of the army surgeons and hospital corps 1t IS safe to say that onefourth of pension appropriation, $37,oooooo year, would have been saved. The that Is upon will cost dearly in lives and treasure, matter how prudently we prepare for its emergencies In default of such pre- paraton the loss will be multiplied and the struggle prolonged.
 Our men are going first to military enterprise in Cuba to march and fight and camp in physical con- ditions that not natural them, face strange diseases to which they not immune. It is not a country of roads and highways Pack trains must take the place of army wagons. The sick and wounded will have no ambulance service. The tropi- cal corporations exhale poisons that light the fires of fever. The wounded will be fortunate than the sick when their plight is considered merely from the surgical standpoint. Field surgery is another art compared with what 1t in our Civil War. Aseptic and antseptic surgery have reduced the form and variety of supplies that then necessary in the surgeons equipment and wounds and amputations have been stripped of than half their terrors and of 75 per cent of their risks. But while this is true the camp diseases abhorrent The deadly nostalgia that homesckness which paralyzes the sentries the picket line of life and lets fever pass unchallenged to slay its victim, hovers like vulture over the march of every army Days of bat
 e of storm of forced march, and nights without rest or shelter are the soldiers lot Stout hearts that beat high in action fail under the unavoidable privation and tension of campaign life. Their succor must come from the knowledge that they unforgotten by the people at home The timely dainty, the good word of hope spoken in pinch and stress, the touch Of womans hand when strength and senses fail, help at the moment when 1t and heart to turn an attack of disease and that which lifts the sufferer to the safe side of its crissa must come from sources auxiliary to the regular medical resources of the army Let us not wait as in the Civil War until thousands are dead in the camps and enlistment to fill their places slackens, because men who will go singing into battle and die with cheer in their throats halt and hesitate when they asked to face death in the hush of the hospital with no wild charge and music and rattle of musketry and of artillery which nerve them in action
 The many drafts necessary to fill quotas and keep our standard advancing in the Civil War had for their principal the certainty of disease in camp rather than wounds and death on the field.
 When war begins it is foolish to say it will be brief and it is wrong omit the smallest preparation to mitigate its suferngs and limit the mortality will cause In the belief that every preparation should be made at once we urge public attention to this imme diate organization of the energy and mercy and skill and devotion of the people at home for sanitary work n cano and hOsoital