Volume 2

Transactions of the International medical congress. Ninth session / edited for the executive committee by John B. Hamilton.

  • International Medical Congress 1887 : Washington, D.C.)
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Transactions of the International medical congress. Ninth session / edited for the executive committee by John B. Hamilton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    87/934 (page 73)
    incidental to the sick chamber, a new site was selected and the removal of both the tent and its contents quickly effected. Shading was often secured by forest trees adjacent to the tents, such positions being frequently available. In the absence of natural shade, attempts were made to secure it artificially by planting around the tents small pine trees which had been cut in the vicinity. These small trees, about four inches in diameter, were cut and placed upright around the tents, and were replaced by fresh ones when the first planting began to wither and become unsightly. Drainage by a trench around the tent or tents wits an indispensable precaution. These trenches were usually made about six inches wide and ten inches deep, thus securing perfect drainage, and, simple as this may seem, care was required. I remem- ber, one rainy night, on the march from Drainsville, the trench, by accident, was so arranged that the lower portion of the declivity was highly banked up, and during the night, the rain falling in torrents, the bank gave way above, flooding the tent as the men were sleeping. “ Sweet were their dreams, but their waking was a damp one.” After the army was stationed at Camp Pierpont, in 1861, the hospitals assumed a more permanent character ; the tents were supported by a frame, and the floors covered with boards, and here the value of the tent hospitals became manifest. Malarial fever in its varied forms prevailed among the troops; also some typhoid and typho-malarial fever, as the distinguished and lamented J. J. Woodward, Asst. Surgeon U. S. A., was wont to designate the disease. Sanitary measures became imperative. Our “ domiciles of canvas” were tested, and were found capable of affording protection surpassing the expectation of those who had hitherto been accustomed to use only permanent struc- tures of brick and stone ; in a word, “ hospital practice.” The autumn passed and the fierce winds of winter flapped our doors, and forced upon us the question of heating. At Camji Pierpont, small stoves were uSed, which did very well when properly secured. These precautions involved cutting the tent and protecting the canvas by tin collars for the pipe. With attention, care and diligence, these answered, but small wood only could be used, and they required constant watch- ing. Butin tents heated in this manner, fevers, pneumonia, pleurisy and diarrhoea were well managed. Another device was the building of a rude fireplace (Fig. 1, p.74) in the ground, in front of the tent, the heat being conveyed to the back part of‘the tent by means of a covered trench there, communicating with a flue made of barrels set on end one above another (Fig. 2). In such cases the trench passing to the rear of the tent was covered with flat stone, old iron plates, or anything available, and on the whole, although not an artistic arrangement, it often did very well. Later, the ideas involved in the structure crystallized to form another and more perfect appliance (Fig. 3), as described on page 91, “Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. Appendix, part I.” This device, Assistant Surgeon Calhoun described as an imitation of the camp stoves of the California miners, resembling in shape the ordinary reverberating furnace. The part for the fire was composed of clay, the chimney of twigs matted in and covered with clay. The top of the furnace was formed by inverting an old mess pan, and a piece of sheet iron was used for a diaphragm or damper, to regulate the draft and to economize fuel. This afforded ventilation, and for the most part furnished equable heat. The men were made comfortable on cots, with mattresses, each tent accommo- dating from six to eight patients. An improvement suggested by Medical Director Tripler, U. S. Army, consisted in the coupling of two tents by means of an extra fly, spread looped to each, thus making a pavilion between them, a convenient arrange- ment as well as an acceptable modification. I have described the requirements of but a single regiment; what the needs of the whole army must have been can be estimated when we remember that Surgeon Tripler, the Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac, reports that in October and