camps, as first inspected, only five were in
admirable order; forty-five were fairly clean and
wholesome; twenty-six were " negligent and
slovenly;" and twenty-four were " decidedly
bad, filthy, and dangerous." Active diffusion
of better knowledge produced such a change
that faults of unwholesomeness which had been
thought unworthy the attention of regimental
officers, came to be considered disgraceful, and
the number of camps in which officers and men
took pride in maintaining an exact and severe
regard to wholesomeness increased rapidly. When
Congress began to discuss the medical and
sanitary care of the army, it had the Commission
to look to for all needful reports, and
required its aid in the preparation of the new
Medical Act, which ordered the appointment of
a special corps of sanitary inspectors from the
staff of regular and volunteer surgeons,
increased for the army the number of regular and
assistant surgeons, enlarged the corps of
medical cadets that yielded dressers to the hospitals,
and removed all the red tape by which hands
could be tied when they should bring instant
help, and whereby the supply of any want could
be delayed for a minute in obedience to mere
routine. The same act appointed as surgeon-
general the most fit person that could be found,
without any regard to seniority. Dr. William
A. Hammond was a scholar in his art, and a
distinguished physiologist, who, at the
outbreak of the war, had relinquished a professorship
to take his old place as an assistant-surgeon
upon the army medical staff. His published
official reports of inspection in hospitals and
camps " had displayed a capacity to grasp with
peculiar power all those practical questions of
military hygiene with which the medical department
is concerned," and he had shown the
practical knowledge as well as the tact necessary in
the chief director of a great reform, by which
the lives of tens of thousands might be saved.
He, therefore, though comparatively a young
man, was boldly placed at the head of the
Medical Bureau. The department, organised
under his care, and his new staff of sanitary
inspectors, should have relieved the Sanitary
Commission of some of the costly work done
by it with means supplied in voluntary
contributions from the people. But the new
machinery was not in full work till the extension
of the war, and the quadrupled demand on every
resource for the care of sick and wounded, made
the abatement in any kind of work or effort
by the Sanitary Commission quite impossible.
There were armies up the Pamunkey and in
New Orleans, under conditions very adverse to
their health, and the constant sickness-rate of
the Federal army was then one-seventh of the
total force. Here is part of a letter from
a hospital ship at Cincinnati, written after
receipt of two hundred and fifty boxes and
barrels from the supply department of the
Sanitary Commission: "Most of the sick are
greatly debilitated, and are much more in want
of stimulants and nourishing appetising food
than any kind of medication. Most diseases

here assume a typhoid type, and more than half
of the severely sick have typhoid fever. Scurvy
is beginning to make its appearance among our
troops, and the health of all is impaired by their
long-continued deprivation of fresh meats, fruits,
and vegetables. I cannot describe, nor can you
fully imagine, how great blessings the eggs, the
butter, the oranges, the lemons, the thousand
cases of fruit, the sauer-kraut, the pickles, the
ice, the potatoes, the ale, the wine, and other
articles of equal value, which composed your
generous gift, will be to these poor, feeble,
feverish, and almost famished fellows, now
lying in the hospital at Hamburgh Landing.
... On Sunday religious services were
performed, and, as cleanliness is next to
godliness, our convalescents were tempted to
self-purification by the offer of a pair of socks
to every one who would wash his feet; to those
who would perform general ablution, clean
shirts and drawers. In this way, with little
trouble to ourselves, we soon brought our whole
cargo of living freight into a more comfortable
and presentable condition."

And let all honour be given for his labour in
the Sanitary Commission, of which he might
almost be called the heart and soul, to Mr.
Frederick Law Olmsted, who acted for the
first couple of years as its general secretary
and was in great part, we believe, its founder.
Mr. Olmsted was, before the war, well known
in England for the valuable information he
obtained by personal research, and published in
his account of Journeys and Explorations in
the Cotton States. See in what spirit he afterwards
animated his fellow-labourers for the
health of the armies of the United States.
"The governing purpose of the organisation,"
he wrote to his associate secretary at the
West, " is to avoid delay and circumlocution, to
the end of accomplishing efficiency and directness
of action. All practicable checks and
methods consistent with and subsidiary to this
are to be observed. None are to be cared for
which assuredly interfere with it. ... When
the money gives out, we are to scuttle and go
down till then, do our work thoroughly."

To those characteristics of the relief system
which we described in our former account of
this admirable organisation, we must add a word
of the Hospital Directory, with offices in different
towns, which are supplied with recent and
accurate information concerning every patient
in the military hospitals. The sole purpose of
this bureau is to enable friends at home to
obtain information readily as to the life or death,
health, sickness, and whereabouts of any soldier
in the Northern armies. Thus inquiry is made
by his mother or wife at the Washington
Directory for information respecting Private John
Jones, Co. C. 64th Regiment, New York
Volunteers. The answer comes, taking one
actual answer as a sample, in this form: " John
Jones, Co. C. 64th Regiment, New York Volunteers,
was admitted to U. S. General Hospital,
Camp A., Frederick, Maryland, Nov. 26th, 1862,
transferred to Camden-street Hospital, Baltimore,