Col. Jos. R. Smith, Surgeon U. S. Army, read before the Ninth International Medical Congress, a paper on "The best Ration for the Soldier," in which he very carefully analyzed the ration then existing, compared it with the rations of foreign armies and the dietaries of various laborers, and discussed various other points. To go into this matter again would be threshing out old straw, and the present paper therefore is confined to a description and discussion of the present ration which has been somewhat modified in form and considerably modified as to its management since the time at which the former paper was written. An army is a collection of disciplined, active, healthy men in the prime of life, to be used as a fighting force in the service of the nation, and it is the object of military administration to so govern and train these men that they