Surgeons' rounds should commence at 9 A. M., and at 6 P. M. The ward-master on duty will closely attend the surgeon, and receive his instructions as he passes through his ward. The ward-master off duty may also attend the surgeon at this time, for the benefit of receiving instructions directly. The surgeon may make this a duty, otherwise it will be optional.
All Hands.
In receiving and discharging patients, or in any emergency which makes it necessary, ward-masters and nurses may be required to do duty in their watches off. In cleaning, fitting, or repairing the vessel for hospital purposes, they will act under orders of the administrative agent.
Receiving and Distributing Patients.
Before patients are taken on board, the vessel should be properly moored or placed, gangways or other means of entrance arranged, and, if possible, all duties completed, for the time being, in the performance of which the crew of the vessel are required. The surgeon, who should have previously informed himself of the character of the accommodations for patients in all parts of each ward, should detail a sufficient number of guides and bearers to convey the patients, and of all necessary attendants at the gangway, and within the wards. These should remove their boots, and each squad of bearers should be instructed that all orders will be given them by their guide alone, and that no one else is to speak aloud while carrying a patient, or passing through the wards. All persons not having a specified duty to perform in receiving patients, should be put where they will not be in the way or disturb the patients, but where they can be readily called on if the force engaged is found insufficient.
As each patient is brought on board, he will be examined by the surgeon in charge, who will direct where he shall be taken; at the same time notes will be taken, as follows:—
Number, Name, Company, Regiment, Residence, Remarks.
The administrative agent will, at the same time, cause a corresponding number to be placed on the effects of the patient, which he will take care of, to be returned to the patient on his leaving the vessel. If practicable, the patients may, before being taken to their berths or cots, be washed and supplied with clean clothing.
It will not usually be in the power of the surgeon in charge to select patients for his vessel. It may, however, be proper for him to protest against taking patients whose illness is not of a sufficiently serious character to warrant their withdrawal from the seat of war, or those for whose cases there is less suitable provision on the vessel than in the hospitals they are leaving, or those already in a dying condition, whose end will have been accelerated or whose suffering aggravated by their removal; also, when going to sea, against taking cases of compound fracture of the lower extremities.
FRED. LAW OLMSTED, Gen'l Sec'y.