Foreseeing the many and great difficulties to be encountered in procuring medical supplies from foreign countries through the blockade, attention was given at an early day to the establishment of medical laboratories, and the manufacture medicines at Lincolnton, N. C. Charlotte, N. C., Columbia, S. C., Macon and Atlanta, Ga., and Mobile and Montgomery, Ala. While these laboratories have been engaged more especially in the manufacture of medicines heretofore universally procured from abroad, great attention has been given to the manufacture of indigenous remedies which are now administered by medical officers in lieu of medicines of foreign origin with favorable results.

In the beginning of the war the department was compelled to depend entirely upon purchasing agents and contracts awarded to individuals for a supply of hospital furniture, bedding, &c., and which contracts in a majority of cases were never filled. It was then determined to assume direct control of the manufacture of these articles, and artisans were detailed from the ranks of the Army and when practicable disabled soldiers were employed.

These employes of the laboratories, purveying depots, and distilleries are in a great measure expert chemists, druggists, and distillers, and men of professional skill, whose services are absolutely indispensable for the manufacture of medicines, hospital furniture, and alcoholic stimulants. It is therefore hoped that the Honorable Secretary will see the necessity of these men being permanently attached to the Medical Department, as the practice of constantly changing these employes is productive of delay and embarrassment to the department. It is also important that they should be exempt from all military duty, for if called out in an emergency, when the purveyor is called upon to fill requisitions for the wounded, it is evident that suffering must ensue in consequence of their absence. Medical supplies stimulant has been until recently dependent upon contracts with individuals. It was ascertained that this mode of supply was susceptible of gross fraud, for although expressly forbidden by the term so the contract, the contractors not only manufactured an excess over the quantity called for by the contract, but frequently manufactured so indifferent and spurious an article that the department was obliged to reject it, thus leaving large quantities of whisky in their hands, which they readily disposed of at prices largely in advance of Government rates. At the suggestion of this Bureau, Congress at its last session granted authority to the Surgeon-General to establish distilleries for the manufacture of alcoholic stimulants. Accordingly they have been established at Salisbury, N. C., Columbia, S. C., Macon Ga., and in Wilcox County, Ala. The distilleries at Salisbury and Columbia are manufacturing from 200 to 500 gallons each of which and alcohol per day. Those at Macon and in Wilcox County, Ala., will be ready to commence operations in two or three months, when all contracts for stimulants throughout the country will be canceled.

A large portion of the grain consumed by these distilleries is rendered useless for other purpose, being damaged in transportation or from insecure storage, and turned over by the quartermasters to this department. Thousands of bushels of grain are thus saves to the Government and made available for army purposes. Arrangements have been perfected with the Quartermaster's Department to supply the distillery at Salisbury with grain, thus avoiding competition between the agents of the two departments in the market. It is onc-