23. There was one instance of a soldier who lost his hearing, and another of a soldier who had been deaf who recovered his hearing, by the noise of artillery in a battle. 24. Those soldiers who were billetted in private houses, generally escaped the hospital fever, and recovered soonest from all their diseases. 25. Hospitals built of coarse logs, with _ground_ floors, with fire-places in the middle of them, and a hole in the roof, for the discharge of smoke, were found to be very conducive to the recovery of the soldiers from the hospital fever. This form of a military hospital was introduced into the army by Dr. Tilton of the state of Delaware[52]. [52] "It is proved, in innumerable instances, that sick men recover health sooner and better in sheds, huts, and barns, exposed occasionally to wind, and sometimes to rain, than in the most superb hospitals in Europe." Jackson's Remarks on the Constitution of the Medical Department of the British Army, p. 340. 26. In fevers and dysenteries, those soldiers recovered most certainly, and most speedily, who lay at the greatest distance from the walls of the hospitals. This important fact was communicated to me by the late Dr. Beardsley of Connecticut. 27. Soldiers are but little more than adult children. That officer, therefore, will best perform his duty to his men, who obliges them to take the most care of their HEALTH. 28. Hospitals are the sinks of human life in an army. They robbed the United States of more citizens than the sword. Humanity, economy, and philosophy, all concur in giving a preference to the conveniences and wholesome air of private houses; and should war continue to be the absurd and unchristian mode of deciding national disputes, it is to be hoped that the progress of science will so far mitigate one of its greatest calamities, as to produce an abolition of hospitals for acute diseases. Perhaps there are no cases of sickness in which reason and religion do not forbid the seclusion of our fellow creatures from the offices of humanity in private families, except where they labour under the calamities of madness and the venereal disease, or where they are the subjects of some of the operations of surgery. AN ACCOUNT OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL EVENTS OF THE _AMERICAN REVOLUTION_ UPON THE HUMAN BODY. There were several circumstances peculiar to the American revolution, which should be mentioned previously to an account of the influence of the events which accompanied it, upon the human body.