IV.

"The atmospheric influences, the mephitism of the soil, and the inhabited locality, are the three principal conditions of the causes of general mortality," says Pringle.

He should have added food; for diet, of all external causes, affects the condition of the human race more than any other. Those who have observed the mortality curve follow the harvests in Ireland and Germany, and noticed how strangely the number of the dead corresponded to the scantiness of food, and those who have experimented with the feeding of domesticated animals, will agree with me on this point.

Let us review these three great principles of destruction, as laid down by the distinguished European authority, and apply them in the explanations of the mortality at Andersonville.