Excerpt from The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, (1861-65)

One hundred and forty-three diseases were specified on this blank, and classified as follows: Fevers, Eruptive Fevers, Diseases of the organs connected with the Digestive System, Diseases of the Respiratory System, Diseases of the Circulatory System, Diseases of the Brain and Nervous System, Diseases of the Urinary and Genital Organs and Venereal Affections, Diseases of the Serous Exhalent Vessels, Diseases of the Fibrous and Muscular Structures, Abscesses and Ulcers, Wounds and Injuries, Diseases of the Eye, Diseases of the Ear, and All Other Diseases.

The form issued for the monthly reports differed from the foregoing only in the omission of the columns intended to receive the cases and deaths of the second and third months, while for the Medical Directors' monthly consolidated reports large sheets were issued on which the names of the diseases were printed across the top of the page, and columns ruled below each, so that twenty regimental reports might be entered in full on a single sheet.

This plan of reporting sickness and mortality had been used in the army, with trifling modifications, for a number of years, and had been found to work well in times of peace, but certain embarrassments were encountered when it was attempted to apply it to the large and suddenly created armies brought into the field at the commencement of the War of the Rebellion.

On the 23d of July, 1862, therefore, the subject of the monthly reports of sick and wounded was referred to an Army Board composed of Surgeon Lewis A. Edwards, U. S. Army, Surgeon J. H. Brinton, U. S. Volunteers, and Assistant Surgeons J. J. Woodward and M. J. Asch, U. S. Army. On the recommendation of this Board it was ordered that the quarterly sick reports to the Surgeon General should be discontinued, and that the monthly reports should be forwarded to the Surgeon General, by the Medical Director, in company with his consolidated monthly report. Not long after, the Medical Directors were authorized by the Surgeon General to discontinue the consolidated monthly reports, and, instead, instructed simply to collect the sick, reports of, the several regiments and detachments under their supervision and forward them to the Surgeon General at the close of each month. On the whole, these modifications were found to work satisfactorily, and discipline improving as the war progressed, greater care was bestowed on the preparation of the reports, which were forwarded with as much regularity as could have been expected during active operations.

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