number in the weekly report has been reduced some, yet it bears an unusually large proportion to the number treated, which I hope to reduce still more as soon as the present crowded condition can be relieved by the occupation of some of the new wards.

I cannot close this without testifying to the efficiency and energy displayed by Assistant Surgeon Moxley, U. S. Volunteers, in organizing this hospital and procuring the necessary supplies of which he found [it] almost entirely destitute. Without proper buildings or bedding, crowded together, scantily supplied with medicine, patients half clad, covered with filth and vermin, enfeebled by previous exposure and privation, it is not surprising many sickened. It is almost a wonder the mortality was not greater.

Hoping to show a marked improvement in our weekly reports,

I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM WATSON,

Surgeon, U. S. Volunteers, in Charge.

[Sub-inclosure.]

OFFICE PRISON BARRACKS HOSPITAL,

Rock Island, Ill., March 16, 1864.

Colonel A. J. JOHNSON, Commanding Post:

COLONEL: Deeming it my duty to bring to your notice the condition of the sick prisoners under my charge and the urgent and pressing want of different and more ample hospital accommodations, also of a supply of clothing to enable convalescents from the variola hospitals to be returned to barracks, I have the honor to submit the following statement for your information, hoping your instructions are such as to allow you to hasten the completion of the new hospital buildings with the least possible delay:

As you are aware, the hospital department occupies eleven barracks within the prison yard, which are separated from those occupied by the prisoners by a high fence recently erected by your order. One of the buildings is occupied as a commissary and store-room for safe-keeping of medical supplies recently received, and a small space where two prisoners are employed in making wooden spittoons, besides tables, shelves, trays, and articles for kitchen use which cannot be procured otherwise. The other ten buildings are fitted up as wards containing from forty to forty-five bunks each, which crowds them so much as to require they should be placed within about a foot of each other, leaving barely room to pass between them, and giving about 40 square feet and from 400 to 440 cubic feet of air to each patient, instead of 60 feet of one and 800 feet of the other, the minimum that correct sanitary principles require.

The nurses are compelled to occupy beds in the wards, as there is no other place, and the crowded condition of the wards does not permit of that classification in arranging the patients which would enable us to guard more perfectly against contagious diseases, nor does the number of bunks permit the prompt removal of all severe cases from the barracks. I have succeeded in separating most of the cases of erysipelas, which before the completion of the last variola wards were compelled to remain wherever they occurred, communicating the disease to patients on either hand. I have been desirous of setting apart a ward for the early reception of cases from the barracks where the existence of smallpox was suspected, but I have been unable to do so, and we are compelled to leave them among their comrades until the appearance of eruption dispels all doubt as to the nature of the case.