The evening times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1902, 1899-10-23
THE HEALTH OF THE NAVY.
surseonl General Van Reypen's In
teresting Annual Report.

teresting Annual Report.
How the health of the naval personnel is
cared for, is told at length in the annual
report of Rear Admiral w. X. Van Reypan,
Surgeon General of the Navy, and Chief of
the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Ad
miral Van Reypen gives an account Of the
newly established naval hospitals at Ca
vite, Guam. Havana, and San Juan, and
evidently takes pride in the arrangements
made for caring for the sick and wounded
in the Philippines.
He calls attention to the steady increase
in the enlisted strength of the navy and
the sudden augmentation of the Marine
Corps by 1900 men to demonstrate that
the Medical Department should have more
surgeons. He recommends that his corps
be increased by five surgeons and twenty
assistant surgeons and that the volunteer
assistant surgeons, who served in the war
with Spain and who are now in the SER
vice, be transferred to the regular navy
as assistant surgeons, the age Limitation
being waived. There are now eighteen of
these in the navy.
Admiral Van Reypen makes plea also
for increasing the pay of naval surgeons
to that received by officers of the cores
ponding grades in the Army Medical Corps
The act of Congress fer the creation of a
Naval Hospital Corps has had excellent
results, all the naval hospitals now being
supplied with trained nurses and hospital
apprentices. An x-ray apparatus has been
installed at every naval hospital and has
given great satisfaction in difficult surgi-
cal cases.
The Surgeon General endorses the propo-
sition advanced by Rear Admiral Crown
inshield, Chief of the Bureau of Naviga
ton, OF abandoning the receivingship sys-
tenn and quartering on shore enlisted men
awaiting sea assignments.
He says: Il cannot close the subject of
receiving ships without adding my endorse
ment to the project now under considera-
ton by the department of replacing them
by barracks as habitations for enlisted men
under instruction or awaiting transfer. The
service has already outgrown them; their
comforts are already on shore. The Ver-
mont has a bathhouse laundry dry room,
washhouse, and provision lockers on shore
near the vessel, and the commanding Off
Ger earnestly recommends the construction
OF building for a gymnasium and drill
room. comparison between the men on
the Richmond and the men on the indie
pendence would convince the most skepti-
cal that a move in the right direction had
been made at Mare Island. There is no
possible doubt as to the sanitary advan-
tages of barracks as compared with receiy-
ing ships. When the latter are crowded,
as they often are, the men are obliged to
sleep in two and sometimes three tiers of
hammocks. 1t is a wonder that so many
OF them are able to resist disease result
ing from the breathing of bad air. Bar
racks can be ventilated thoroughly and
Systematically. Old wooden ships can only
be ventilated, by having at least half the
occupants sleeping in a draft, to their
manifest, discomfort and detriment."
Concerning navy pensions growing out
Of the war with Spain, the surgeon general
says: 'On enquiry at the Pension Office
IL was ascertained that the navy pension
claims filed in that department and incl
dent to the late war with Spain amounted
to less than six hundred cases, and that
there has been a very decided diminution
in the number Of such cases during the
past three months. This statement, inter-
esting in itself. is strongly confirmatory
of the statistics covering this period COM
piled and on file in the bureau, exemplify-
ing the remarkable freedom from disease
experienced by the personnel of the navy
during the recent war.
"Of the eighty-four cases casualties of
war; occurring in the navy during the Pc
Rod OF hostiities, April u to August 12,
1888, only seventeen have filed their claims
for pension, and when it is considered that
eighteen of the casualties were fatal and
an equal number of a most serious nature,
the small percentage go per cent? of ap-
2licants filing their claims is rather note
worthy. Although the number of pension
calls made upon this bureau has decreased
during the past year, the work attending
the preparation of medical histories has
largely increased, owing to the long period
spent in the service of those now applying
for pension and the more extended and
complete clinical records in all cases made
by the medical officers during the past
twenty years.
The following Is list of accidents oc-
curing among the workmen of the New
York yard, first treatment being given at
the yard dispensary: Abrasio, 3; ambus-
ito ex Galore. 16; contusio, "a; fractura ID;
SIENNA, IA; dislocatio, l. vulnus contus-
UNI. 9S; vulnus insisum, &c; vulnus lac
eratum. "A; vulnus punctum, 5; insolatio.
4; epilepsia. 2; apoplaxia, /; hemorrkage,
1; total, 2SS. OF these the following Eere
sent to hospitals: Contusio l. fractura, 4;
dislocatio, /; apoplexia, /; epilepsia, /;