The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1898-10-06
'0UR PORTO RICO TROOPS
Alarming Increase Of Sickness
Among the Soldier Boys.
THE REGULARS AND VOLUNTEERS
While In the Former the sickness
Averages Only Ten Per Cent, I'm the
sixteenth Pennsylvsnis Forty-six
Per Cent Are on the Sick List.

Averages Only Ten Per Cent, I'm the
sixteenth Pennsylvanis Forty-six
Per Cent Are on the Sick List.
Ponce. Porto Rico, Oct. At Is the
well grounded and almost unanimous
opinion Of the medical stan Of the
American army in Porto Rico that the
condition Of the volunteer forces here
necessitates their removal north. Sick
ness is increasing, and has been in
creaslng during the past four weeks
at an alarming rate. The sick report
shows over 2,700 in hospitals or in
quarters, out Of a total command of
10000 men-that Is, over 25 per cent of
the troops are on the sick list. This.
however, does not mean that there Is
an effective strength Of 1900 men. The
soldiers discharged from the hospitals
as fit for duty are in nine cases out of
ten incapable of service, and If ordered
to duty are almost invariably back in
the hospital within a few days. The
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 pos
sible, several hundred leaving every
| week.
1t is a significant fact that there is a
| wide disparity between the sickness In
the volunteers and regular commands.
In the two regular infantry regiments,
the Nineteenth and Eleventh, the sick
ness averages only about 10 per cent,
while in the volunteer regiments-the
! Sixth Massachusetts, First New York
| engineers, Fourth Ohio, Third Illinois.
First Kentucky. Third Wisconsin and
| Sixteenth Pennsylvania-it averages -
| per cent. In the last named two, where
| the conditions are the worst. the sick
report shows a 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 :
brigade, are unfit for duty, and week
| ago, when General Ernst moved his
headquarters up to Aibonito. on the
summit OF the mountain range. II was
found that it would be- impossible for
! the brigade 10 follow. The command is
PROSTATE where ii is.
Undoubtedly the wide disparity be
tween the percentage of sickness in the
! volunteers and regular organizations is
| largely due to the fact that the former
| are better able to care for themselves.
| Most of them are veterans who under
| stand the rules of health in camp, and
| their officers from the very outset have
| enforced with untring energy the Sani
tary regulations SO neCo ssary for the
| preservation of health. But more than
that, the regulars are making soldering
a business. They did not enlist for the
war, but for five years. and they look
upon their assignment for scrvic" in
| Porto Rico philosophically. and so
make the best of the situation.
The volunteers, Oh the other hand, en-
| listed for two years. but with the al
most universal expectation that they
would be mustered out when the war
| closed. Almost to IA 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
| talked of nothing else. Homesickness
depressed their spirits and made them
easy victims of the malarial climatic
conditions.
The worst feature Of the situation is
the steady increase I'm the number of
typhoid cases, which reaches over 400.
For time II appeared probable that
the typhoid fever in the army. most of
which Is alleged to have come from
Camp Thomas and Camp Algcr, origi-
naly, would be stamped out, but re-
Gently new cases began to appear at
an alarming rate. Major Snowden and
his associates do not believe that there
is n new source of contagion. hut rather
that the cases are due to infection from
the old cases.