Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1898-10-08
OUR 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 Cont, In the
sixteenth Pennsylvania Forty-siX
Per Cont Are on the Sick List.

Ponce, Porto Rico, Oct. At is the
well grounded and almost unanimous
opinion of the medical staff 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
creasing during the past four weeks
at an alarming rate. The sick report
shows over 200 in hospitals or in
quarters, out of total command OF
10000 men-that is. over 20 per cent OF
the troops are on the sick list. rms,
however, does not mean that there Is
an effective strength Of $500 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 TINS
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
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,
ir1 WISCONSIN and
Sixteenth Pennsylvania-it averages 81
per cent In the last named two, where
the conditions are the worst, the SICK
report shows q percentage Of 1T IN the
Sixteenth Pennsylvania and ~ in the
Third Wisconsin,. over half of these
two regiments, which, with the First
Kentucky, comprise General Ernst 5
brigade are unfit for duty, and a week
ago. when General Ernst moved ms
Headquarters up to Aibonito, on the
summit of the mountain range. 1t was
found that it 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 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 untiring energy the SAM
tary regulations so necessary 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 service in
Porto Rico phi!osophically, and so
make the best of the situation.
The volunteers, on 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 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. Homesickncss
depressed their spirits and made them
easy victims of the malarial climatic
conditions.
The worst feature of the situation is
the steady increase in the number Of
typhoid cases. which reaches over 400.
For a time it appeared probable that
the typhoid fever in the army. most of
which is alleged to have come from
Camp Thomas and Camp AlSer, orisi-
nally, 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 a new source of contagion. but rather
that the cases are due to infection from
the old cases.