Statistical report on the sickness and mortality in the Army of the United States / Compiled from the records ... Jan. 1819, to Jan. 1839. Prepared under the direction of Thomas Lawson.

  • United States. Surgeon-General's Office.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statistical report on the sickness and mortality in the Army of the United States / Compiled from the records ... Jan. 1819, to Jan. 1839. Prepared under the direction of Thomas Lawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In the-southern division of the army, the usual diseases of our troops, intermittents, diarrhoea, and dysentery, prevailed ; but the cases reported were generally of a mild character, and controllable by ordmary reme- dies. The reports for the quarter ending the 30th June, exhibit nothing peculiar. Pulmonary consumption and intemperance are as usual the active causes of death among the troops. The deaths from these two causes, as in our bills of mortality, it will be seen, constantly present a heavy item. In this quarter, out of twenty-three deaths, nine are traced directly to an excessive use of ardent spirits, whilst others doubtless were owing indirectly to the same cause. 'The Surgeon General em- braced this occasion to impress upon the Secretary of War the import- ance of striking the whiskey altogether from the ration, and substituting an equivalent in vegetables or sugar and coffee ; but it was not until the administration of Mr. Cass, in 1830, although its necessity was frequently urged, that an order was promulgated directing that ‘ the commissaries shall cease to issue ardent spirits as a part of the daily ration of the soldier.” The total of cases and deaths reported for the quarter ending the 30th September, was unusually large. , The principal diseases were fevers of the synochal, intermittent, and remittent type, and diarrheea and dysen- tery. Under the first form of fever is included, the typhus which pre- vailed at the north; and under the last, the bilious remittent or yellow fever, which appeared in many of our cities, on the sea-board, and even as far west as the Missouri. In the southern division, intermittents and remittents, in their common form, were unusually prevalent; and at most places, more especially along the borders of Florida, attended with much hepatic derangement. Dysentery was also presented in a char- acter of more than ordinary severity and fatality. ‘The sick reports of all the military stations from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, showed in general a high ratio of disease, the symptoms were for the most part severe, and the average of fatal cases proportionably high. Some facts of an “interesting and valuable character, in relation to yellow fever, are interspersed through the quarterly reports. It may be regarded as a singular concurrence of opinion, coming, as it does, from individuals so remotely situated and viewing the subject under such various circumstances, that the belief in its contagious nature, has been in no instance avowed. ‘I'he doctrine that intermittent, remittent, and yellow fever, assume, according to circumstances, more or Jess the type of one another, seems to be extensively entertained. Believing them to arise from similar causes, variously modified, to assail the system through the same avenues, and to require the same general treatment, these fevers are regarded by this class of reasoners as essentially the same, modified by the intensity of the cause, and peculiarity of consti- tution. This position is strongly confirmed by the oft observed fact, that the natives of our southern cities, in which yellow fever is endemi- cal, possess, in a great measure, an exemption from this malady ; for, whilst intermittents and mild remittents prevail among the old inhabi- tants, yellow fever often manifests itself so exclusively among those