CHAPTER XLVII.
"SICK CALL," AND THE SCENES THAT ACCOMPANIED IT--MUSTERING THE LAME, HALT AND DISEASED AT THE SOUTH GATE--AN UNUSUALLY BAD CASE--GOING OUT TO THE HOSPITAL--ACCOMMODATION AND TREATMENT OF THE PATIENTS THERE--THE HORRIBLE SUFFERING IN THE GANGRENE WARD--BUNGLING AMPUTATIONS BY BLUNDERING PRACTITIONERS--AFFECTION BETWEEN A SAILOR AND HIS WARD -- DEATH OF MY COMRADE.
Every morning after roll-call, thousands of sick gathered at the South Gate, where the doctors made some pretense of affording medical relief.
The scene there reminded me of the illustrations in my Sunday-School lessons of that time when "great multitudes came unto Him," by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, "having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others." Had the crowds worn the flouting robes of the East, the picture would have lacked nothing but the presence of the Son of Man to make it complete.

Here were the burning sands and parching sun; hither came scores of groups of three or four comrades, laboriously staggering under the weight of a blanket in which they had carried a disabled and dying friend from some distant part of the Stockade.

Beside them hobbled the scorbutics with swollen and distorted limbs, each more loathsome and nearer death than the lepers whom Christ's divine touch made whole.

Dozens, unable to walk, and having no comrades to carry them, crawled painfully along, with frequent stops, on their hands and knees.

Every form of intense physical suffering that it is possible for disease to induce in the human frame was visible at these daily parades of the sick of the prison.