These things confirm the necessity of a regulated cooperation between the sanitary, the medical, and the military officers of an army.  The sanitary officer should be secure of the services of engineers enough to render the hospital, as well as the camp, safely habitable.  As soon as any building is taken possession of for a hospital, men and their tools should be at command for exploring the drains and making new ones,—­for covering or filling up ditches,—­for clearing and purifying the water-courses, and leading in more water, if needed,—­for removing all nuisances for a sufficient distance round,—­and for improving to the utmost the means of access to the house.  There must be ventilating spaces in the roof, and in the upper part of all the wards and passages.  Every vaulted space, or other receptacle of stagnant air, should have a current established through it.  All decaying wood in the building should be removed, and any portion ingrained with dirt should be planed clean.  A due water-supply should be carried up to every story, and provided for the bathrooms, the wash-houses, and the kitchen.  Every edifice in America is likely to be already furnished with means of warmth; and the soldiers are probably in no danger of shivering over the uncertain promise of stoves on the 18th of December.

Next comes the consideration of store-place, which can be going forward while busy hands are cleaning every inch of ceiling, walls, floors, and windows within.  There must be sheds and stables for the transport service; and a surgery and dispensary planned with a view to the utmost saving of time and trouble, so that medicines and utensils may be within reach and view, and the freest access allowed to applicants.  The kitchens must have the best stoves and boilers, dressers and scales, and apparatus of every kind that is known to the time; for more lives depend on perfect food being administered with absolute punctuality than upon any medical treatment.  There must be large and abundant and airy store-places for the provisions, and also for such stocks of linen and bedding as perhaps nobody ever dreamed of before the Crimean War.

The fatal notions of Regimental Hospital management caused infinite misery at Scutari.  In entering the Regimental Hospital, the soldier carries his kit, or can step into his quarters for it:  and the regulations, therefore, suppose him to be supplied with shirts and stockings, towel and soap, brushes and comb.  This supposition was obstinately persevered in, at Scutari, till private charity had shamed the authorities into providing for the men’s wants.  When the wounded were brought from the Alma, embarked on crowded transports straight from the battle-field, how could they bring their kits?  Miss Nightingale, and benevolent visitors from England, bought up at Constantinople, and obtained from home, vast supplies of body- and bed-linen, towels, basins, and water-cans; and till they did so, the poor patients lay on a single