a ward pavilion in detail: a is the ward room, occupying 150 feet in length of the pavilion, and twenty feet wide, containing fifty-two beds; b, the mess room; c, scullery; d, bath room; e, water closet; f, ablution room; g, wardmaster's room. The pavilions are four or five feet narrower than they should be, and when the beds are all full there are but 960 cubic feet of air to each patient; but as this is constantly changed by the admirable ventilation, it is nearly sufficient. The number of beds is 3,320. There is a force of 622 officers, attendants, guard, &c., attached to the hospital. The cost of the buildings was over $250,000. The McClellan Hospital, situated in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, though smaller (1,040 beds), is, perhaps, more nearly perfect than any other yet erected. The corridor is of a flattened ovoidal form, from the ends of which the pavilions project. These pavilions are wider, larger, and farther apart than at the Mower Hospital. The administrative building is in the centre and connected with the corridor by two straight passage ways. In the ground-plan (fig. 3), a is the main corridor; bbb, wards; c, administrative building, two stories high; d, kitchen; e, laundry; f, clothing and guard rooms; g, engine room; h, stable; i, provision and knapsack store room; k, quarters of medical officers in charge. We give below ground-plans of two other military hospitals of large size, each arranging the pavilions in a different way, but all observing the same principles. The first is the Hammond General Hospital, at Point Lookout (fig. 4), in which sixteen pavilions project from a circular corridor. The administrative building is the wide structure at the upper side of the circle, and the kitchen, laundry, guard room, dead house, &c., are in the centre. The pavilions here are 40 feet apart at the corridor, and 75 feet at the farther end. They are 145 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 14 feet high to the eaves, and 18 to the ridge. The ventilation is perfect. Each patient has 1,116 cubic feet of space. The second, the Lincoln General Hospital, at Washington city (fig. 5), has its pavilions placed en echelon, along a corridor, forming two sides of an acute-angled triangle. The administrative building is at the apex, and the kitchen, &c., inclosed within the angle. This hospital accommodates 1,200 patients. By this arrangement a thorough ventilation of each ward is secured, while all the wards have the same direction and receive the rays of the sun at the same time-a matter of considerable importance. In the West, large hospitals on some one of these, or similar plans, have been erected at St. Louis, Louisville, Nashville, Madison, Evansville, and New Albany, Indiana; and others are building at Madison, Wisconsin; Davenport, Iowa; and other points. For field hospitals, the hospital tent is undoubtedly preferable to any building. Where a camp is somewhat permanent, the improved Crimean tent with double walls, ridge ventilation, and the admission of pure air near the floor, answers a good purpose. In both, special attention should be paid to ventilation, and over-crowding carefully avoided. In the lighting and warming of hospitals, special care is now taken to avoid vitiating the air by the gases produced by combustion. Where it is possible, illuminating gas is used, but the vitiated air, and carbonic acid gas, are conducted off by chimneys in such a way as to increase the ventilation of the ward. If gas cannot be obtained, the vegetable oils or paraffine, spermaceti, or wax candles are preferable to any other modes of illumination. Coal or petroleum oils, camphene and burning fluid, ir ritate the lungs, and affect the respiration. The animal oils give off carbon, carbonic acid, and carburetted hydrogen in too large quantity to be desirable. The heating of the hospital wards should be connected as far as possible with the ventilation. The usual method is by stoves, though in some, hot water is introduced with advantage. Ruttan's system would seem to possess advantages over any other plan of warming and ventilation, but, so far as we are aware, has not been introduced. The temperature in cold weather is carefully watched, and is not allowed to vary much from 64° to 66° Fahrenheit. The alimentation of the soldier is one of the most important items in the hygienic condition of the army. Great attention has been paid by the medical and commissary officers of the Government, to the arrangement and character of the ration, in order to furnish such combinations of food, and of such quality, as should be best adapted to maintain the health and strength of the soldier in its greatest perfection. The rations of most of the European armies are de(FIG. 4.) fective in these respects. The quantity of meat is generally too low, and in some, the supply of fresh meat and vegetables, and of coffee and sugar, is altogether inadequate. The fearful prevalence of typhus fevers, and of scurvy and other cachectic diseases, in the British and French armies in the Crimean war, was unquestionably owing to the poor quality and scanty quantity of the rations. The British soldier receives at home stations sixteen ounces of bread, and twelve ounces of flesh meat uncooked ; on foreign stations, sixteen ounces of bread, or twelve ounces of biscuit, and sixteen ounces of meat, fresh or salt. This is charged to him at three and a half pence per day abroad, or four and a half pence per day at home. Coffee, sugar, pepper, potatoes, salt, or whatever else he may need, he must purchase from his own funds, where and how he can. In a few of the foreign stations, as at Hong Kong and the Cape of Good Hope, rice, sugar, coffee, and salt, in insufficient quantities, are issued as component parts of the ration. In the United States army, the ration is wholly independent of the pay, and consists of the following articles: bread or flour, 1 lb. 6 oz.; fresh and salt beef, 1 lb. 4 oz., or pork or bacon, 12 oz.; potatoes, 1 lb. three times a week; rice, 1 oz.; 6 10 amantine candles, or 14 lbs. of tallow candles, rations. Pepper has also been recently added and 4 lbs. of soap, are issued to each hundred to the ration, and extra issues of pickles, fruits, sauerkraut, and other vegetables are made, whenever the medical officers consider them necessary for the health of the troops. Whenever it is practicable for the troops to bake their own bread, flour is issued, and as the amount of bread thus produced would be excessive for a ration, the surplus flour is resold to Government at cost, and a company fund formed, which is used for the purchase of such additional articles of food or comfort as may be desired. In time of peace, company gardens are cultivated at every military post, and furnish an abundant supply of fresh vegetables. The ration is somewhat in excess of the wants of the soldiers, and it is a very general custom in the army for the companies to sell back a portion of it which is unconsumed, to the commissary, and from the company fund thus formed, obtain milk, fruits, or other luxuries. It is evidence of the sufficiency and good quality of this ration, that with the exceptions presently to be mentioned, there has been little or no tendency to scurvy in the army, and no indications of insufficient alimentation. In the case of the army in the Department of the South, in Folly and Morris Islands in the summer of 1863, there was for some time difficulty in obtaining a full supply of some articles comprised in the ration, especially the fresh meat and vegetables, and the quality of the biscuit was poor, partly probably from the sea voyage; the men were meanwhile exposed to extraordinary fatigue, and severe labor, and though few cases of clearly defined scurvy appeared, there were cachetic symptoms in connection with the disease which prevailed. To the extraordinary and humane efforts of the Sanitary Commission, in providing ice, lemons, oranges, lime juice, potatoes, onions, and other anti-scorbutics in large quantities, and furnishing them freely to the men, is unquestionably due the preservation of that army from scurvy, in its worst forms. Gen. Grant's army, during the siege of Vicksburg, was in a similar condition of danger; the salt beef and hard tack, which, for a time, constituted their principal food, from the difficulty of transportation, proving insufficient to maintain the men in sound health under the severe labors of the siege. Here again the hospital visitors of the Sanitary Commission discovered the danger of scurvy; and potatoes, onions, sauerkraut, &c., were sent forward in immense quantities, and with the best possible effect. There was a similar danger for a time at Chattanooga, after the battle of Chickamauga, and at Knoxville during the siege, the men subsisting for some weeks on half rations; but with the removal of the obstructions to transportation, and the returning abundance, the cause for alarm passed away. In the Confederate army scurvy and cachectic diseases have prevailed in several instances with great malignity, and the insufficiency of the rations has been indicated painfully in the low grade of febrile action, which has prevailed in their camps. The last topic which we shall mention as ex erting an influence upon the hygienic condition of the army, is the clothing of the soldier. This is a matter of importance in relation to its sufficiency in protecting from cold, in guarding the body against excessive heat, in permitting the free use of the limbs, and in rendering the man a more or less conspicuous mark for the fire of the enemy. The sudden changes and rapid transition from cold to heat, and from heat to cold in the climate of the United States, render woollen clothing preferable to any other for army use, though for a short time in the summer, in the Southern departments, cotton, duck or jeans might be used with advantage. The color of the clothing, experience has fully settled, should be light blue, or gray, and for the purpose of being less distinctly seen by the sharpshooters of the enemy, red, which had at the beginning of the war been adopted by some regiments, proves more objectionable than any other color. The kepi or small cap is preferable to most other forms of headgear, though the soft hat is not without some advantages, and the tarboosh or turban of the Zouaves is valuable as a protection from the direct rays of the sun. The neck, if covered at all, should only have the lightest and loosest of coverings. The trousers should be loose and full, and the shoes broad and long enough for easy walking. Gaiters of linen, woollen, or leather, are advantageous, supporting the leg and preventing varicose veins. It is owing to the care and persistence with which these various hygienic measures have been urged upon the army, and the great pains which have been taken to instruct and train the army surgeons, and nurses in the hospitals for their duties, that the army of the United States, composed almost wholly of volunteers, whose whole mode of life has been changed by their new vocations, the greater part of them entirely ignorant of the laws of health, with surgeons who had, for the most part, no previous training in military medicine or surgery, and many of whom were utterly unfitted for their duties, has maintained a lower sick rate, as well as a lower rate of mortality than any other army in modern times. This result has been reached too, while the regions in which the army has been stationed have in general been exceedingly unhealthy to the unacclimated, quite as insalubrious as any part of Spain, Portugal, or the Crimea. The attainment of so gratifying a result is due in a great degree to the U. S. Sanitary Commission, which, by its careful, regular and special medical inspections of every army corps, and all the hospitals, has promptly detected any violations of hygienic laws, and taken measures to correct them; has published brief medical and surgical tracts from the pens of the ablest military physicians in this country and Europe, and placed copies in the hands of every army assistant surgeon and medical cadet in the army; has trained many of the best nurses for camp, field, and hospital; has provided anti |