In all military hospitals, food is to be regarded as the principal
medicament. With good food, the results of surgery may be foretold with
tolerable certainty, and the obstructions to the medical treatment lessen
greatly or disappear. Without the aid of pure, healthful, life-giving
aliment, the duration of animal life is always brief when exposed to
vicious and hostile influences.
The ration used here, or the system of dietary, was not constant; neither
do we know sufficiently well the quantity, or quality, or variety, to form
a true and candid estimate of its value in sustaining the physical
strength, or repairing the waste and metamorphose of the organs and
tissues of the system.
We know, however, that it was supposed to be bacon, flour, and corn
bread--rarely fresh meat; and vegetables were almost unknown. The only
vegetables and delicacies were either obtained in exchange, at exorbitant
rates, for the little currency which the prisoners had managed to secrete
among their rags, or they were now and then introduced stealthily by a
few of the humane surgeons at the peril of their lives. Persons whose
systems are weakened by want of proper food, by exhaustion from excessive
labor, or exposure, or disease, require a great variety of articles from
which to select the substances which a depraved but instinctive palate
often craves. Food which would disgust the healthy appetite, will not
quicken into action the debilitated and flickering sensation of taste.
During an enfeebled condition, loathsome morsels become injurious; for
digestion is clearly at the command of the mind, and is often checked by
its caprices.