Book: Observations on the Diseases of the Army in Camp and Garrison

Overview
Benjamin Rush addresses the distinctive medical problems that beset soldiers living in crowded, mobile, and often unsanitary conditions. Drawing on experience from the Revolutionary era and later reflections, he blends case observations, practical rules for camp management, and therapeutic recommendations aimed at reducing the high morbidity and mortality associated with garrison and campaign life. His account mixes empirical observations with contemporary medical theory and an urgent concern for public measures that could prevent disease.

Disease Patterns and Causes
Rush describes a spectrum of illnesses common to military life: fevers of various types, diarrheal diseases, dysentery, consumption, and eruptive disorders like smallpox. He links these conditions to the crowded and contaminated environments of camps, poor ventilation, impure water, inadequate food, and the exposure that soldiers experience. His causal language reflects early nineteenth-century medical thinking, attributing disease both to contagion and to environmental miasmata, while emphasizing the role of neglect and the failure to separate the sick from the healthy.

Prevention and Camp Hygiene
A central thrust is prevention through organization: site selection, drainage, ventilation, and disciplined sanitation occupy the foreground of his recommendations. He insists on proper latrine placement, clean water supplies, removal of refuse, and adequate space between tents to reduce noxious effluvia and limit the spread of infectious conditions. Rush also stresses nutrition, clothing, and the regulation of labor and rest as essential to maintaining soldiers' constitutions, arguing that many outbreaks could be averted by sensible camp planning and regular attention to cleanliness.

Treatment Philosophy
Therapeutic advice combines aggressive measures typical of the period with pragmatic supportive care. Rush recommends interventions such as bloodletting and purgatives for many febrile disorders, coupled with external applications and changes in diet and housing. He advocates timely isolation and observation of symptoms to guide treatment intensity, and he supports inoculation and vaccination for smallpox as a preventive strategy. While many specific remedies reflect now-outdated humoral notions, the emphasis on early, decisive intervention and on the physician's role in supervising camp health reflects a systematic clinical approach.

Organization, Discipline, and Moral Health
Beyond physical measures, Rush underscores the importance of military discipline and moral regulation for disease prevention. He links intemperance, irregular habits, and lax enforcement of rules to increased susceptibility, arguing that commanders and surgeons must cooperate to enforce routines conducive to health. His view connects social order, personal conduct, and institutional responsibilities as co‑determinants of a healthy force.

Impact and Legacy
Rush's recommendations influenced thinking about military hygiene and public health by stressing prevention, environmental control, and the institutional duties of medical officers. Although many of his specific treatments are obsolete and some interventions were harmful by modern standards, his insistence on sanitation, clean water, ventilation, and vaccination anticipated later advances in epidemiology and preventive medicine. The work is a window into early American medical practice and the evolving struggle to translate medical theory into practical measures that protect populations in extreme living conditions.