[81.] Ford, Washington Writings, Vol. III, p. 146.
[82.] Kapp, Life of Steuben, p. 119.
Chapter III
HEALTH AND SANITATION
The health of the soldier was not entirely forgotten. Those in authority made an attempt to prevent or at least to lessen the pain and suffering of those who were taken sick or were wounded in army service, but often the measures of prevention instituted, the methods of checking contagion and the means of allienating pain were of the crudest sort and to us of the twentieth century they seem almost inhuman. It must be remembered that not even our simple remedies of today were known then, not to mention our modern methods of combating disease.
The continental congress thought of that phase of army conditions and on July 25, 1775, the following provisions were made. For an army of twenty thousand men a hospital was to be established under the direction of a Director General, his salary was to be four dollars per day. He was to superintend the whole, furnish the medicines and bedding and make a report to and receive orders from the commander-in-chief. Under the director there were to be four surgeons, one apothecary and twenty surgeons' mates, each receiving two-thirds of a dollar per day, whose duty it was to visit and attend the sick. There was also to be a matron who had under her direction the nurses, one for every ten sick soldiers.[83] Then in July 1776, the resolution was passed that the number of hospital surgeons and mates was to be increased in proportion to the increase in size of the army not to exceed one surgeon and five mates to every five thousand men and to be reduced as the army was reduced.
Dr. Church was appointed by congress as director, but before October 14, 1775, he had been taken into custody for holding correspondence with the enemy[84], and on October 17, 1775, Dr. Morgan was elected in his stead.[85] But even after the new director was appointed there was still room for complaint for Washington wrote to Congress "I am amazed to hear the complaints of the hospital on the east side of Hudson's river. * * * I will not pretend to point out the causes; but I know matters have been strangely conducted in the medical line. I hope your new appointment when it is made, will make the necessary reform in the hospital, and that I shall not, be shocked with the complaints and looks of poor creatures perishing for want of proper care, either in the regimental or hospital surgeons".[86]
Congress had made several attempts to organize the hospitals and in July 1776, resolutions had been passed which defined more fully the duties of the various officials both of the departmental and the regimental hospitals.[87] There was to be a director and under him the directors of the various departmental hospitals.[88] But since there were only a few departmental hospitals and those few often a long distance from the scene of battle it became necessary to have branch hospitals or regimental hospitals. At the head of those were persons known as regimental surgeons, who were to make reports of expenses, and lists of the sick to the director of the departmental hospital and receive supplies from him.