In the organization of a hospital the most important parts are the system
of nursing and the supply and cooking of food; when these are observed,
much exposure to the elements can be endured.
Pestilences are retarded, and sometimes completely checked, in their
destructive career when opposed by generous alimentation and sympathetic
care; and the vital powers,--the _vis medicatrix naturae_,--rally their
mighty strength for renewed effort. We have for instance the great and
marked change in the healthy condition and the mortality of the British
army before Sebastopol in the spring of 1856, when England poured out
lavishly her treasures, and sent men of scientific ability to correct the
well-nigh fatal errors of hygiene which were committed by her military
men.
We have also another instance in the check of a devastating pestilence at
New Orleans, as observed and mentioned by Dr. Cartwright. "As soon as a
generous public diffused the comforts of life among the seventy thousand
destitute emigrant population of New Orleans, last summer, the pestilence,
which was sweeping into eternity three hundred a day, immediately began to
disappear, before frost or any other change in the weather, its artificial
fabric being broken down by the beneficent hand of the American people."