246 Journal and Correspondence

Original

of the Soldiers and to follow my Directions in hospital Matters,
as likewise to desire the quarter Master of the Sick to apply
to me properly, and I shall be allways glad to concur with the
Major in any Step for the benefit of the Service in a regular
manner, And I will with Your permission take the Fort under
my particular Care, The more so as I have all along contrivd
a Medical School to bring up young Surgeons for Militairy
Service, and in which I have the Satisfaction to have allready
succeeded, instead of such, which after their hardly finish'd
Apprentiship set up, and act the wise Doctor with all the Ar-
rogance, at the expence of the patient, and I am apprehensive
the Majors Ambition does not reach further. I once more
ask Your Excellencies Pardon for this long Letter and am with
the greatest Respect
Your Excellencys

Most hble & obed Serv^t

C Wiesenthal

Copy in
Wiesenthal's
handwriting

[Dr. Wiesenthal to Maj. Smith.]
Sir
I made a Visite to the Fort to examine that Part of the
Barracks, which you have converted into an hospital and I think
it will do very well for little triffling Disorders for the Recep-
tion of Patients when they are first taken ill untill the Doctor
thinks it requisite to have them movd to a Safer place, but
Sir the place will by no means do for a regular Hospital, in
all Cases and at all times. And I am extreemly Sorry, that
you was so hasty, not only to conclude but actually to remove
the patients, without even the knowledge, or Advice of the
Doctor, whose Judgment in a Case like this, of establishing
an hospital, would be deemed essentially Necessary even by
the greatest General.
That the Fort is a very unfit place for an hospital must
plainly appear even to you, upon mature Reflection because
a situation Surrounded with Water in itself sickly must in
Consequence make it more difficult for People allready sick to
recover. And I beg that you will represent to your mind a
Danger which you little thought of, I mean the impurity of
the Air, when the Patients are obliged to swallow the Effluvia
arising from their diseas'd Bodys which on Account of the
Lowness of the Building can not properly rise and be venti-
lated, this will inevitably turn slight disorders into putrid and
dangerous ones, nay in Case any Person should be taken with
such a Complaint, (as we have had many) he must unavoid-
ably infest the Rest, nay even the healthy for Instance if Poor
who lately died had unfortunatly been at that place, it would