Prophetic writing from Walt Whitman

Ever since I strated working with semi-literate students at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, I have started taking classic writers much more seriously. Currently, I am reading the Library of America collection devouted to poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Many well-read people are probably familiar with the fact that Whitman visited veteran hospitals right after the Civil War. I found the following journal entry by Whitman, which was written in March of 1865. The short piece is entitled "Wounds and Disease" and it appears in his prose collection titled "Specimen Days." It seems exceptionally moving considering what many who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are going through now.

                               "Wounds and Disease"
   
    "The war is over, but the hospitals are fuller than ever, from former and current cases. A large majority of the wounds are in the arms and legs. But there is every kind of wound, in every part of the body. I should say of the sick, from my observation, that the prevailing maladies are typhoid fever and the camp fevers generally, diarrhea, catarhal affections and bronchitis, rheumatism and pneumonia. These forms of sickness lead; all the rest follow. There are twice as many sick as there are wounded. The deaths range from seven to ten percent of those under treatment."

I highly recomment the Library of America series. They've been a real learning experince for me.