Government Ownership.--The ownership and control of the Hot Springs of
Arkansas by the United States Government is absolute, and its endorsement
of them for the treatment of certain ailments is unequivocal. After due
investigation, congress took possession of the springs in the year 1832,
and it retained around them a reservation ample to protect them from all
encroachments, It was the first National park reservation of the country.
They are set apart by this act as "A National Sanitarium for all time,"
and "dedicated to the people of the United States to be forever free from
sale or alienation."
The Army and Navy Hospital at Hot Springs.--In the year 1883 the United
States Government built a hospital known as the army and navy hospital at
Hot Springs, Arkansas, on the Southwestern slope, near the base of Hot
Springs mountain, since which time the soldiers and sailors of the army
and navy have been sent there for treatment for such ailments as the
waters may reasonably be expected to cure, or relieve. In his circular for
the guidance of the officers of the army in sending the sick there, the
surgeon-general of the United States enumerates the ailments for which the
sick should be sent to the army and navy hospital at the Hot Springs. It
says, "Relief may be reasonably expected at the Hot Springs in the
following conditions: In the various forms of gout and rheumatism after
the acute or inflammatory stage; neuralgia, especially when depending upon
gout; rheumatism, metallic, or malarial poisonings, paralysis, not of
organic origin; the earlier stages of locomotor ataxia; chronic Bright's
disease (early stages only), and other diseases of the urinary organs;
functional diseases of the liver; gastric dyspepsia, not of the organic
origin; chronic diarrhea; catarrhal affections of the digestive and
respiratory tracts; chronic skin diseases, especially the squamous
varieties, and chronic conditions due to malarial infection."
Approved, GEO. H. TORNEY, Surgeon-General U. S. Army.
J.M. DICKERSON, Secretary of War.
Privileges of Ex-Soldiers of the Civil and Spanish-American
Wars.--Honorably discharged soldiers of thc Civil war, and the
Spanish-American war, can obtain admission to the army and navy hospital
at Hot Springs in the following manner, and under certain conditions:
First.--Write to the Surgeon-General, United States Army, Washington, D.
c., for blank applications and instructions.
Second.--Upon receiving the blank application, fill it out properly, and
return it to the Surgeon-General, when, if there is room in the hospital,
he will forward to the applicant papers entitling him to admission to the
hospital. The conditions are that such ex-soldier shall pay forty cents
per day during the period he remains at the hospital. Such payment
entitles him to board, lodging, baths, medical treatment and medicine.