in case of an advance or an attack. The proportion of serious cases to the whole number treated is about one-third, and this I should consider as the true number of the sick who would be unfit for any duty at any given time. This would give 2.3 per cent. as inefficient.

The deaths have been in November 281, which gives a modality for the whole force of 2.36 per cent. per annum.

The diseases from which our men have suffered most have been continued remittent and typhoid fevers, measles, diarrhea, dysentery, and the various forms of catarrh. Of all the scourges incident to armies in the field I suppose that chronic diarrheas and dysenteries have always been the most prevalent and the most fatal. I am happy to say that in this army they are almost unknown. We have but 280 cases of chronic diarrhea and 69 of chronic dysentery reported in the month of November. No other army that has ever taken the field can show such a record. We have 1,331 cases of measles reported in November. This disease almost invariably appears among irregular troops in a few weeks after they are assembled in camp. The regiments among whom these cases have occurred are those recently arrived. Most of them reached this city with the disease prevailing. It has been generally of a mild form, soon running through the regiment, and then disappearing. I don't consider its propagation under these circumstances as due to contagion. On the contrary, it springs up from local causes to which all the men are equally exposed, and those susceptible become its subjects as a matter of course. Among regular troops it is very rarely seen.

Of fevers of all sorts we have had 7,932 cases. Of these 4,051 were regiments and typhoid. The proportion of the latter to the former is stated to be 1 to 2.3. I have every reason to believe that this is greatly exaggerated from error in diagnosis. I do not look upon typhoid fever to the extent it has prevailed in this army as being of any great moment. From the report of inspectors of hospitals, as far as inspections have yet been made, I am satisfied this disease, if it ever prevailed to that extent, is now considerably declining. The regiments that have suffered most from fevers in November have been the Vermont, one from Maine, one or two from Pennsylvania, and one from Indiana. In all these regiments disease is now sensibly abating, and we have every reason to hope that in a few months their sanitary condition will be equally as good as that of the rest of the army.

I think there is abundant reason to be satisfied with the progress that has been made in this army in introducing something of a system of hygiene; in instructing its medical officers in their duties; in keeping them supplied with sufficient medicines, hospital stores, an instruments; in exacting from them a proper accountability for public property, and insisting upon its eying used with economy; in preventing the army from being burdened with articles that, however, convenient they may be, are not absolutely necessary, and cannot be transported in any possible supply train when the men are required to march; in requiring reports at short intervals of the sanitary condition of the regiments, and in instituting regular and thorough sanitary inspections, by officers of experience of the medical department of the army, who are competent to perform that duty, who understand what is necessary and what superfluous, and upon whose reports we can undertake to correct errors and abuses understandingly.

The regilt of all this great effort is seen in the statistics above recorded. While the ration of cases of disease to the whole force does not differ for the two months reported, the ration of modality is .67 per cent. .