Excerpt from The Military Surgeon, Vol. 46: March, 1920 On July 15, 1810, for the first time, Dr. Barton makes extended Remarks, at the end of the day's record, as follows: The dysentery and diarrhea are now and have been for the last ten days the prevailing diseases on board the ship. Most of the patients on the sick list with other diseases are more or less afflicted with these complaints in a slight degree. Neither of these diseases, however, are of a very violent nature. This constitutes the only clinical observation of any moment which I could discover in a review of the seventeen months' record con tained in these reports. It is also quite remarkable how seldom mention is made of the transfer of patients to hospital. However, considering the character of the so - called hospitals then available, it is perhaps not surprising that he preferred to retain the sick aboard ship. Later in his career he urged improvement of naval hospitals with characteristic vigor, and a critical reference in his book on Marine Hospitals, published in 1814, with respect to the hospital at the Navy Yard, Phil adelphia, was the basis of charges, made by a brother medical officer, which resulted in the court-martial of Barton. The court. However, perhaps realizing the justice of his criticism, ruled that the specification covering the alleged offense need not be answered or refuted, and thus virtually exonerated Barton of this specification of the charge. Some of the entries in the Sick Reports are very obscure in their clinical and pathological significance. For instance, while there can be little question regarding the nature of the disease entered as typhus, which caused the death of Wm. Rysela on July 6, 1809, since Barton has added sick two months, what did James Williams lst really succumb to on August 17, 1809, under the designation nervous fever, when on the previous day he first appears as very ill, typhus? Barton mentions in his work on Hospitals that he checked several cases of sea-scurvy on the United States by the liberal administration of lime juice. He had much to say later, after his cruise abroad in the Essex, of its virtues as an anti-scorbutic, and urged its adoption by our Navy, in an official report. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.