as is desirable. I therefore recommend that two medical inspectors-general and eight medical inspectors be added to the present organization. The authorization of an additional assistant surgeon-general would also be a measure of great propriety.

Considerable progress has been made in the establishment of an army medical museum. The advantages to the service and to science from such an institution can not be overestimated. I respectfully recommend that a small annual appropriation be made for its benefit. An army medical school, in which medical cadets and others seeking admission into the corps could receive such special instruction as would better fit them for commissions, and which they cannot obtain in the ordinary medical schools, is a great desideratum. Such an institution could be established in connection with any general hospital with but little, if any, expense to the United States.

A hospital of a more permanent character than any now in this city is, I think very necessary, and will be required for years after the present rebellion has ceased. I therefore recommend that suitable buildings be purchased or erected for that purpose. If this is done, the medical school and museum will be important accessories to it.

Experience has shown that a most useful class of officers was authorized by the act relative to medical store-keepers. The number now authorized is too small. They could very properly perform the duties of medical purveyors now performed by medical officers, and as physicians and surgeons and who are now acting as medical purveyors, would be enabled to resume their proper duties. I therefore recommend an addition of ten medical store- keepers.

At present the washing of clothes in general hospitals is provided for as follows: One matron is allowed for every twenty patients, who receives a compensation of $6 per month and one ration. Great difficulty is experienced in large general hospitals in procuring as sufficient number of matrons to perform this duty, and I have the honor to propose that instead of this now unreliable plan, a sum of money, equivalent to the pay and allowance of a matron, say $12 for every twenty patients, be monthly allowed to every general hospital, to be appropriated for laundry purposes at the discretion of the surgeon in charge, whether to the payment of matrons or to the payment of bills for washing by steam or otherwise. The tenth section of the act approved July 17, 1862, gives additional rank to officers of the Adjutant-General's, Quartermaster's, Subsistence, and Inspector- General's Departments who are serving on the staff of the commanders of army corps.

There is, I think, manifest propriety in extending the provisions of this act to the officers of the Medical Department who may be on duty with such commands as medical directors, and I respectfully ask for such extension.

The Engineer and Ordnance Departments are charged with the erection of buildings which require special knowledge. The building of hospitals requires also knowledge of a peculiar character which is not ordinarily possessed by officers out of the Medical Department. It would, therefore, appear obviously proper that the Medical Department should be charged with the duty of building the hospitals which it is to administer.

In the matter of transportation the interests of the service require that the Medical Department should be independent. Much suffering has been caused by the impossibility of furnishing supplies to the