. It was depressing to note the change that had taken place in
Ward 4 during my absence in Dr. Bates' ward. When I went into Ward 4, it
was full to crowding. On my return, less than half the beds were occupied,
more than half the patients having died.

In the ambulance that carried me from the boat to the hospital was a man
who must have been in great pain. He complained bitterly. He was wounded
in the foot. The day after we got to the hospital his foot was amputated.
In a few days a piece of his leg was cut off, and again his knee was
sacrificed, and inside of two weeks he was a dead man. The gangrene was in
his foot when we got to the hospital and as soon as an amputation was
performed it would break out in the new wound made. He was a Connecticut
man, married. His wife came on and was with him during the last days he
lived and took his body home with her.

A Michigan man used to excite my sympathy. He was wounded in the right
shoulder and the bones of that joint were knocked all to pieces. The upper
part of the humerus, a part of the clavicle and a part of the scapula had
been removed. He was a great broad-shouldered, six-foot-six man, and to
see that Hercules pacing up and down the ward--for he could not keep
still--his arm in a sling and holding it up or steadying it with his left
hand as best he could, the wounded shoulder still hanging way down--was a
most pitiable sight.

The day after I got to the hospital I noticed a bed away by itself in one
corner of the ward, with a large frame over it covered with mosquito
netting, and I soon saw things which indicated that there was a wounded
man there. On inquiry, I learned there was a man in there lying at the
point of death. The doctors did not expect him to live and they were just
trying to make his last hours as comfortable as they could. He was a
German by birth and belonged to a New York regiment. He had been hit in
the thorax, the ball passing through from side to side piercing the bones
on both sides and going through a portion containing vital parts. When I
was taken to the erysipelas ward he was still alive, and when I came back,
the wound dresser thought he had begun to mend. When I returned to the
ward in February, he was able to get around on crutches, and when I left
the hospital in May he could walk without his crutches. He was not very
elastic on his feet to be sure, and it was pretty funny walking. He walked
on the end of his feet and toes, his heels be