If we reckon, for six
months, 10,000 sick upon an average, and for each of them 12 groschen
per day (and, including all necessaries, they could scarcely be kept at
that rate), the amount for each day is 5000, and, for the six months,
the enormous sum of 900,000 dollars, which the exhausted coffers were
obliged to pay in specie. This calculation, however, is so far below the
truth, that it ought rather to be greatly augmented. A tolerable
aggregate must have been formed by proportionable contributions from all
our country towns, and this was for the service of the hospitals alone:
judge then of the rest.
Previously to the battle of Leipzig the state of the inmates of these
pestilential dens, these abodes of misery, was deplorable enough, as
they were continually becoming more crowded and enlarged. Many of the
persons attached to them, and in particular many a valuable and
experienced medical man, carried from them the seeds of death into the
bosom of his family. With their want of accommodations, cleanliness was
a point which could not be attained, and it was impossible to pass them
without extreme disgust. As Leipzig was for a considerable time cut off
from the rest of the world by the vast circle of armies, like the
mariner cast upon a desert island, the wants of these hospitals became
from day to day more urgent. Provisions also at length began to fail.
Pages:
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89