have been but recently assigned and it is impossible to decide on their proficiency. The other medical officers, with a few exceptions, are capable and attentive. The physicians who have been recently employed will no doubt cancel their contracts as soon as the militia is disbanded, and the services of the detailed physicians will also be lost. With this view I would suggest that a sufficient number of competent medical officers be assigned.

There is a deficiently of medical supplies issued by the medical purveyor. Supplies of medicines have occasionally been entirely exhausted, and we have been left several days at a time without any whatever. This has arisen from the delay experienced in sending requisitions to medical director at Atlanta for approval.

The hospital ration is commuted as for other general hospitals, and supplies for the subsistence and comfort of sick are purchased with hospital fund. Heretofore we have been able to supply the sick with vegetables; but during the entire month of July the commissary has been without funds, and difficulty has been experienced in purchasing on time.

The ration issued to the prisoners is the same as that issued to Confederate soldiers in the yield, viz, one-third pound pork, one and a quarter pounds meal, with an occasional issue of beans, rice, and molasses. The meal is issued unbolted, and when baked is coarse and unwholesome.

Amongst the old prisoners scurvy prevails to a great extent, which is usually accompanied by diseases of the digestive organs. This, in connection with the mental depression produced by long imprisonment, is the chief cause of mortality. There is nothing in the topography of the country that can be said to influence the health of the prison. The land is high and well drained, the soil light and sandy, with no marshes nor other source of malaria in the vicinity, except the small stream within the stockade. The densely crowded condition of the prisoners, with the innumerable little shelters irregularly arranged, precludes the enforcement of proper police and prevents free circulation of air.

The lack of barracks accommodation exposes the men to the heat of the sun during the day and to the dews at night, and is a prolific source of disease.

The margins of the stream passing through the stockade are low and boggy, and having been recently drained, have exposed a large surface covered with vegetable mold to the rays of the sun, a condition favorable to the development of malarious diseases. It is the design of the commandant of the prison to cover the surface with dry sand, but the work has been unavoidably retarded.

The absence of proper sinks (and the filthy habits of the men) have caused a deposit of fecal over almost the entire surface of this bottom land.

The point of exist of the stream through the walls of the stockade is not sufficiently bold to permit a free passage of ordure.

When the stream is swollen by rains the lower portion of this bottom land is overflowed by a solution of excrement, which, subsiding and the surface exposed to the sun, produces a horrible stench.

Captain Wirz, the commandant of the prison, has doubtless explained to you the difficulties which have prevented these with other projected the way of bathing and other arrangements for cleanliness.

Respectfully submitted.

ISAIAH H. WHITE,

Chief Surgeon of Post.