The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
These things confirm the necessity of a regulated cooperation between
the sanitary, the medical, and the military officers of an army. The
sanitary officer should be secure of the services of engineers enough to
render the hospital, as well as the camp, safely habitable. As soon as
any building is taken possession of for a hospital, men and their tools
should be at command for exploring the drains and making new ones,--for
covering or filling up ditches,--for clearing and purifying the
water-courses, and leading in more water, if needed,--for removing all
nuisances for a sufficient distance round,--and for improving to the
utmost the means of access to the house. There must be ventilating
spaces in the roof, and in the upper part of all the wards and passages.
Every vaulted space, or other receptacle of stagnant air, should have a
current established through it. All decaying wood in the building should
be removed, and any portion ingrained with dirt should be planed clean.
A due water-supply should be carried up to every story, and provided
for the bathrooms, the wash-houses, and the kitchen. Every edifice in
America is likely to be already furnished with means of warmth; and
the soldiers are probably in no danger of shivering over the uncertain
promise of stoves on the 18th of December.
Next comes the consideration of store-place, which can be going forward
while busy hands are cleaning every inch of ceiling, walls, floors,
and windows within. There must be sheds and stables for the transport
service; and a surgery and dispensary planned with a view to the utmost
saving of time and trouble, so that medicines and utensils may be
within reach and view, and the freest access allowed to applicants. The
kitchens must have the best stoves and boilers, dressers and scales, and
apparatus of every kind that is known to the time; for more lives depend
on perfect food being administered with absolute punctuality than
upon any medical treatment. There must be large and abundant and airy
store-places for the provisions, and also for such stocks of linen and
bedding as perhaps nobody ever dreamed of before the Crimean War.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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