White House, Virginia, May 20, 1862.
SANITARY COMMISSION.
Atlantic Hospital Transport Service.
THE REGULATION OF DIET FOR PATIENTS.
The simplest possible arrangements should be made for the diet of patients which will be consistent with their proper treatment.
At the outset, the cook may be ordered to prepare daily for breakfast, to be ready at 7 A. M., ten gallons of tea and fifteen loaves of bread in slices, with butter, for every hundred patients on board; for dinner, ten gallons of beef-stew made with vegetables, and fifteen loaves of bread, for every hundred patients on board; for tea, the same as for breakfast.
Orders for special diet should, as far as possible, be confined to beef-tea, arrow-root or farina gruel, milk-porridge, and milk-punch.
Quantities of each of these articles, except the punch, may be prepared by the cook once a day, and delivered to the matron, under whose care they should be warmed in portions over spirit-lamps, as required at any time during the day or night.
As a general rule, for each hundred patients on board, there should be prepared, for twenty-four hours,—
| 2½ | gallons of beef-tea, |
| 4 | gallons of gruel, |
| ½ | gallon of milk-porridge. |