Daily new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1897-1906, 1898-09-01
NRCERS TO BLAME.
Filth Allowed Caused Bad Con-
ditions at Camp Thomas.
BOYTON DEFENDED HOSPITALS.
Some of Sensational stories as to Lack of
Enough to Eat Likely Due to the Re-
fusal to Give Typhoid Convalescents
Any bnt Liquid Food.

WAsHINGTOS, Sept. 1.-Secretary AL
ger yesterday received the report of
General H. Y Boynton upon the state
| of affairs in the hospitals at Camp
Thomas. The report is dated Aug. 80.
He says that he visited all the hospitals
III the camp without giving notice of
his purpose.
From the middle of April last, when
the camp was established, until April
| %, fully 10000 men had been there.
The death list was 1873.
General Boynton went into detail
and showed that the different hospitals
were in good condition and well sup
piled with everything needful. By or
Ger of General Sternberg everything
needful was ordered purchased for the
sick In some cases there was shortage
of physicians and nurses, but those SER
wing stuck to their posts in spite of be-
ing sick themselves. Details from the
regiments to help in one hospital were
not as satisfactory as trained nurses
At several hospitals the Red Gross gave
liberal donations.
In two of the hospitals, he said. I'M
doubtedly originated the sensational
stories that patients lacked sufficient
food and in many cases had been on
the verge. OF starvation. In the wards
where convalescent typhoid fever
patients were found, many men were
constantly asking for food, and were
denied everything except the lighter
forms, as other food might have proved
fatal.
The report, he said, was on present
conditions, but he was constrained to
IL
the part of either the medical or the
quartermaster departments to furnish
such supplies as have reached the camp.
At one point, he said in part: Gun
doubtedly there have been serious in
conveniences, and at times of the great
est crowding those lacks of conven-
fences and full attendance which go to
make up that painful condition of
affairs, which, as every veteran knows,
are inseparable from the field hospitals
of great armies, even when all con-
cerned exert themselves to secure the
comfort of the patients. These are
conditions which, fn times of rapid in
crease of disease-a condition which
was reached at this camp solely in my
Judgment from the filth which too
many of the regimental officers allowed
to dominate their camps, in spite OF the
orders which would have prevented all
this trouble from the surgeon general
and from the commanding officers OF
this camp-create situation which
cannot be Immediately ameliorated.
$50 far from believing, as result OF
my observations, that medical officers
have been heartless or negligent, l be-
lieve that these officers and the hospi-
tai attendants, as whole, have exerted
themselves to discharge their duties
faithfully. 1t would seem as if this
were sufficiently shown by the fact that
they have worked increasingly until a
quarter of the whole force has itself
been stricken by disease, resulting from
their exhausting labors."
He then answered charges alleged to
have been made by Surgeon General
Terry of the state of New York, in an
interview in the New York Herald.
He declared some of them to be false
and went somewhat into detail. At
another point he said:
''In closing beg leave to express my
opinion that most of the interviews
with ehaplains, regimental surgeons
and others, both officers and men, now
appearing at the north in many of the
newspapers in regard TO this camp, are
reckless and false except as to the filthy
conditions which their own criminal
neglect has caused.
an my Judgment the recent increase
in the outcries against water and the
persistent assertion that the park is un-
healthy have been largely and deliber.
ately used to stir up sentiment and in
1uence which would be exerted to in
sure their relief from service"