Martyria Part 10

X.

The forms of disease observed here were simple, and they seldom exhibited positive indications, or, rather, the immediate effects and influences of malaria. Neither of the four great pestilential diseases appeared--cholera, yellow fever, plague, or remittent fever.

The diseases treated, or noted down rather upon the hospital register, were generally the different forms of inanition, or of exhaustion of the powers of life by the absorption of noxious vapors, or by the exposure when in feeble condition to the extremes of heat and moisture.

The mortality among the patients removed to this place was perfectly appalling. Nearly eight hundred men out of every thousand perished. Yet this might have been foretold from the horrible condition, the pre-arranged dest.i.tution of the hospital. Besides carefully selected food, pure and dry air is indispensable for the recovery of a diseased condition, and damp and vitiated air is sure to r.e.t.a.r.d improvement, or to induce complications.

Neither food nor healthy atmosphere were afforded.

The symptoms of the patients indicated the want of food, and were not in reality the signs of actual disease. And the post-mortems made at this hospital revealed the absence of lesion, save those consequent upon starvation or prolonged suffering.

The minutes of this clinic are very extensive and particular, and they exhibit in overwhelming proof the cause of death.

Life was prolonged to the last degree of the natural vitality, and among the phenomena observed, the law of muscular irritability, as discovered and explained by Brown-Sequard, was well ill.u.s.trated. There was no cadaveric rigidity; for the want of nutrition, the vitiated atmosphere, the exposure to the vicissitudes of climate, had weakened and utterly destroyed all nervous power. Immediately after the cessations of the functions of life, putrefaction appeared and progressed with great rapidity.

XI.

In discussing the rate of mortality of this hospital, we cannot with propriety a.s.sume a standard for comparison, for nowhere can we turn to a.n.a.lyze results from similar causes. We may, perhaps, take the data and statistics of our own military prisons, but the contrasts are too fearful for credulity. We will consider these at length, with other comparisons, in the next Book.

"The truth is in the facts, and not in the spirit that judges them."

XII.

The want of system cannot be charged to the fault of the organization of the rebel Bureau of Medicine, for that was well arranged and strictly governed.

It may partly be ascribed to the general carelessness of the officers in charge, and partly to the desire of the rulers that the numbers of prisoners should decrease, and consequently their labors should diminish, no matter how, nor how quickly.

That there were men in charge of the patients who were dest.i.tute of all moral scruples, of all refined and humane sentiments, there can be no doubt, but there were a few men who did not partake of the general madness of the spirit of destruction, and who exhibited a tender regard for the sufferings of their fellow-men. The names of Thornberg and Head will always be preserved as among the only few redeeming acts in the story of the great wrong. The sympathy of these men was undisguised, and when protest failed to produce kindly impressions, or to bring alleviation to misery, they secretly sought to succor the dying men from their own scanty store at the peril of their lives.

Dr. Head was not only threatened with death by the brutal Wirz, but he was actually imprisoned for a short time for giving to the dying some vegetables which he had gathered from his little garden. "Sire," said the n.o.ble Surgeon Larry to Napoleon, "it is my avocation to prolong life, and not to destroy it."

Let no man attempt to recall the scenes that took place in this wretched enclosure, which was falsely called a hospital; let no man attempt to lift the veil of darkness which now obscures the acts or the animus which governed and directed this mockery of philanthropy, for the human mind already staggers under the load of horror which is imposed by the events of every-day life, and advanced civilization has no desire to renew the recollection of the atrocities of the dark ages.

BOOK SIXTH.

"To die, is the common lot of humanity. In the grave, the only distinction lies between those who leave no trace behind and the heroic spirits who transmit their names to posterity."--_Tacitus._

I.

It is always difficult to determine the natural duration of life, or the death-rate for any locality or any cla.s.s of people, since the range of circ.u.mstances that affect the health of men and animals is so vast, that it requires great research, powers of a.n.a.lysis and comparison; so extensive a knowledge of the phenomena and the laws of life, that few men have the courage to attack, or the ability to comprehend and solve the complex problem.

In our estimations we must consider what is due to the agencies of the natural world, such as geology, meteorology, and the like, as well as to age, const.i.tution, temperament, anterior professions, and morbid predispositions, also the exaltation and demoralization of moral action.

"We see," says Buffon, "that man perishes at all ages, while animals appear to pa.s.s through the period of life with firm and steady pace." The great naturalist shows how the pa.s.sions, with their attendant evils, exercise great influence upon the health, and derange the principles which sustain us; how often men lead a nervous and contentious life, and that most of them die of disappointment. Buffon is right, and the English statistics show us that the duration of life is generally in proportion to its happiness and regularity, and that miserable lives are soon extinguished.

Hope sometimes forsakes the stoutest hearts, and with hope disappears the mainspring of earthly life.

II.

In deciding upon the causes of the excessive mortality at Andersonville, there is not much obscurity to contend with. But we must admit that there must have been some mortality, for there is a determined duration of life for every species of animal; and we must also allow that under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, the death-rate of soldiers encamped in this unhealthy locality would have been far beyond the normal limit.

From calculations based upon the most accurate and extensive observations made in England for a long series of years, it was determined that a mortality of less than two per cent. per annum for all ages might be a.s.sumed as a fair average rate of deaths in a population where sanitary measures were properly attended to.

It is noticed by eminent observers, that the mean rate for Europe is about three per cent.; which is regarded as excessive, being about double of what is estimated as the natural ratio.

Our distinguished statistician, Dr. Edward Jarvis, remarks that the mortality of two per cent. in England includes all ages--infancy as well as the last decades of life; and he states that the proper rates for comparison are those of the males in England of the military age, which is observed to be less than one per cent.

He shows that the death-rate of the soldier in England is less than one per cent., and also considers the stated mortality of three per cent. for the continent of Europe as much too high. The mortality on the continent is greater than in England, and greater in England than in Scotland.

In times of peace, the mortality of soldiers is not much greater than that of the civil laborers; but during campaigns no limit can properly be given, for the vicissitudes are so rapid, and the exposures so varied, that the chances of life and death cannot be estimated with fairness, or with any degree of certainty. But when encampments are arranged, and occupied for any considerable length of time, the possibilities and probabilities of health may then be considered with propriety.

III.

These chances and these causes of general mortality depend upon the atmospheric influences, the mephitism of the soil, the density of the population, and the excellence of the food and shelter, as well as upon the natural vigor and strength of the individual.

Some cla.s.ses of human beings have greater tenacity of life than others, but all are affected by vicious influences, and yield sooner or later to the elements of destruction. "Everything in the animal economy is regulated by fixed and positive laws."

"We live on our forces," says Galen: "as long as our forces are sound, we can resist everything; when they become weak, a trifle injures us." The truth of this remark is well ill.u.s.trated in the life of the soldier, whose health is in exact ratio to the condition in which he is placed. And his mode of existence, the combined influence of food, exposure, and the training of mind and body, give a peculiar character, which requires, when disabled, special modification of treatment, and a particular kind of experience. The ancient physiologists distinguished two kinds, or rather two provisions of strength--the forces in reserve and the forces in use; or, as they said, "Vires in posse et vires in actu;" or, as Barthez describes it, the radical forces and the acting forces.

The young soldier, supported by this buoyancy of the unknown force of life, recovers from terrible shocks and disasters to his system, while the old man, fatigued and exhausted by the great and protracted labors of active campaigns, feels that he has the hidden resources--the reserved and superabundant powers of youth--no longer.

IV.

"The atmospheric influences, the mephitism of the soil, and the inhabited locality, are the three princ.i.p.al conditions of the causes of general mortality," says Pringle.

He should have added food; for diet, of all external causes, affects the condition of the human race more than any other. Those who have observed the mortality curve follow the harvests in Ireland and Germany, and noticed how strangely the number of the dead corresponded to the scantiness of food, and those who have experimented with the feeding of domesticated animals, will agree with me on this point.

Let us review these three great principles of destruction, as laid down by the distinguished European authority, and apply them in the explanations of the mortality at Andersonville.

V.

It has been observed by medical men, from the time of Hippocrates down to the present day, that the effects of a heated atmosphere, saturated with moisture, are very injurious, and exceedingly prolific of disease.

Air at 32 of Fahrenheit, according to Leslie, contains, when saturated with moisture, 1/160 of its weight of water; at 59, 1/80; at 86, 1/40; at 113, 1/20; its capacity for moisture being doubled by each increase of 27 of Fahrenheit.

The degree of heat within the stockade sometimes rose to beyond 110 Fahrenheit, and the degree of humidity was correspondingly as great. That moisture exerts more influence in the production of disease than any other meteorological condition, is well observed in every-day life. M. Bossi found, in his investigations, that the extreme and constant humidity of the atmosphere affected the barometer of health very markedly, and he established the following ratio of mortality for the different regions: The ratio for mountains and elevated regions he observed to be one in thirty-eight; on the banks of rivers, one in twenty-six; on the level plains, sown with grain, one in twenty-four, and in parts interspersed with pools and marshes, one in twenty.