I think my hospital can boast, just now, the happiest set of
sick men I ever saw. I have now twenty-seven of them. This morning, as I was
prescribing for them, (all sitting up) some reading the morning papers, and
talking loudly over war news, some playing whist, some checkers, some chess,
some dominoes—all laughing and merry, Gen. H—— walked in, and, looking for a
moment along the line of sick, exclaimed, "What the h-ll have you got
here?" "My hospital, General." "A Brigade," replied he
in his roughest manner, "of a d----d sight better men than you have left
me. Where are your sick, sir?" "All here, sir." "Well, this
beats anything I have seen in the army, and if you give your men such beds and
such comforts as this, you will have every man of your regiment in hospital
before a month." They have had a glorious holiday. The boxes, and other
presents received within the last eight days, have awakened vivid recollections
of home, and of "the girls they left behind them." They are all the
better for these things, and when I return them to their quarters, they take
hold of their work with a will, and with a feeling that if taken sick, they
have a pleasant hospital to go to.
I make here a record of some observations in relation to
"hospital fevers," "hospital sores," "foul air of
hospitals," and such clap-trap. I have lately visited many tent hospitals,
in the open field, where I have witnessed cases of "hospital
gangrene," low typhoid fevers, with gangrenous toes or fingers dropping
off, and heard scientific men, in scientific discussions, attributing it all to
the foul air of the hospital! And this, too, in the open field, where not more
than thirty or forty were together, and where the wind swept past them, free as
the fresh breezes on the top of the Alleghanies!! 'Twas a gangrene of the mind,
for want of free ventilation of the brain. There is no disease so contagious,
or so depressing to vital energy when taken, as inactivity and gloominess of
mind. Introduce one such temperament into your hospital, without an accompanying antidote,
and the condition will be communicated to all others in the hospital, with as
much certainty, and with greater rapidity, than would the infection of
small-pox or measles. Let the admission of such a patient be accompanied by the
presence of a long, sour-faced hospital steward, who keeps in the hospital tent
a table covered with cups, and spoons, and vials, and pill-boxes, and syringes,
and who mingles with every potion he gives a homily on hospital sickness, on
fatality in the army, on the number of deaths from typhoid in the next tent,
and my word and observation for it, though the breezes of that hospital come
fresh "from Greenland's icy mountains," they will be freighted with
the mephitic vapors of hospital fever and gangrene.
Instead of the above, let the Surgeon pass frequently
through his hospital, making it a rule never to leave till he has elicited a
hearty laugh from every one in it. For his Steward's table of mirth-repelling
instruments, introduce light reading, chess-men, checkers, dominoes, cards,
puzzles, their use to be regulated by a corps of jolly, mirth loving, but
judicious nurses. Then let him throw up the bottoms of his tent walls, giving
everything around an air of cheerfulness, and if he does not find the diseases
of the field hospital milder and more tractable than at home, my word for it,
it will be in consequence of the officious over-dosing by the doctor. I do not
mean that cleanliness is not an essential; but I must bear in mind that a pile
of nasty, out-of-place rubbish, is as incompatible with cheerfulness, as it is
with purity of surrounding air. A clean bed, even, exhilarates the mind, as
promptly as it corrects the foul odors of a soiled one. Since I have been in
the army, I have lost all dread of the much-talked-of foul air of
hospitals, only so far as it is difficult
to correct the mental atmosphere about it. This is in
reference to its influence on diseases. I have not yet had an opportunity of
observing the effects of crowds in surgical wards—that
will come before long, and I shall be greatly relieved if I find the same
records applicable there.
SOURCE: Alfred L. Castleman, The Army of the
Potomac. Behind the Scenes. A Diary of Unwritten History; From the Organization
of the Army, by General George B. McClellan, to the close of the Campaign in
Virginia about the First Day January, 1863, p. 72-4
