A letter on the sanitary condition of the troops in the neighborhood of Boston, addressed to his excellency the governor of Massachusetts / by S. G. Howe ; printed by request of the Advisory Committee.

  • Howe, S. G. (Samuel Gridley), 1801-1876.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter on the sanitary condition of the troops in the neighborhood of Boston, addressed to his excellency the governor of Massachusetts / by S. G. Howe ; printed by request of the Advisory Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    8/16
    only about two feet lateral sjmce upon the floor, so that the men slept in actual bodily contact, packed almost like herring. It could not be otherwise. One company, more fortunate, were lodged in a sort of barn, had over 40 feet of floor space, and 500 feet cubic space per man. The following table gives the measurement of the rooms at Fort Warren: No, of Length. VVidtb. Height. Floor surface. Cubic space. lodgers. Total. To each man. Total. To each man. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. 12 15 13 1-6 7 1-6 197.5 19 1,425 119 11 16i 11 7 1-6 181.5 17.6 1,267 115 12 161 lOf 7 1-6 176 14,8 1,261 113 60 45 15 16 675 11.25 10,800 180 12 16i U 7 1-6 181.5 15 1,283 106.6 12 Ui lOf 7 1-6 176 14.8 1,261 105 11 Uk lOf 7 1-6 176 16 1,261 113 Here, again, the average floor space was less than 15 feet to each man, and the average and cubic space less than 145 feet. I omit from the calculation one room, in which on one night 75 men are said to have slept, with a floor space of only nine feet to a man ; which is hardly credible even by western travellers, who have to sleep three in a bed^ or on the floor. It is useless to say that the air in such rooms must be unwholesome even with the port holes and doors open in warm breezy weather ; but when closed in cold nights, or whether closed or open in still nights, the air must become fetid and unwholesome. Breathing it must, of course, continually, and little by little, lessen the stock of vital force. As for those lodged in tents, they fare worse. In the first place, the tents are badly pitched. In some no atten- tion is paid to drainage ; and in none that I have seen is the drainage systematic and thorough. In some, as at Keadville, a slight ditch is dug around the tent, and the sods and dirt left in a heap or carried away at leisure. A far better way is, supposing the tent to be circu- lar, first, to mark a space equal to its circumference at the bottom, and take off all the sods from the inside of this circle, then dig a trench all around the outer edge and throw the dirt within the circle, then take the sods and put them back again and beat them down firmly. You have then an elevated floor ; and if you drive the pegs at the bottom of the trench, and strap down, you can easily keep the tent dry without closing it at the bottom. If the wind blows, throw in a