Here is part of the info. I'm still trying to do some research into 19th century medical and Civil War disease.
One website (it might be this one) mentioned something about the Ohio 77th losing 208 members to disease, but it did not elaborate on whether they lost them due to their being disabled or whether this number reflects those who died from disease.
Reading through my gggf's 300 page civil war file of affidavits & depositions from doctors, surgeons, other soldiers, local citizens, authorities, etc... the depositions described how the eye infections were common among the members of the Ohio 77th when they were in Little Rock Arkansas. Particularly after the severe winter of 1864 and through the end of Spring. Multiple mentions that they had been plagued with severe colds from severe exposure and excessive labor. One soldier mentioned it was spread by contact with others who had the affliction. It was also described as feeling like sand in the eyes and the eyes would seal shut overnight.
Even if all of them had visited a house of lewd for extracurricular activities and all of them had contracted the same STD, it would be very rare and improbable that all of them managed to spread the infection into their eyes. So the numbers tend to imply something else... possibly similar to pink eye (infectious conjunctivitis). When I was in France in the mid 1960's (my father was in the service) we were told at that time to never touch our eyes after touching or handling anything in public places because they had some kind of terrible infectious eye disease in France that caused blindness. As I remember, Arkansas was part of the Louisiana Purchase, controled and populated by many French. I'll have to look into those eye diseases further.

Although I had initially thought William’s eye infection was of gonococcal origin, he had been cured of it prior to discharge from the service by arsenic treatments as was his wife #3. But the eye infection continued for 20 years until his death in 1883. I decided to look at it from a different perspective. Without antibiotics, there are many other bacterial infections that can get into the eyes. In consideration of the poor sanitation and shared outhouses and shared bathing items, it would have been a breeding ground for the soldiers to transmit diseases from one to the other through commonly shared items. Even the STD's could have been cross transmitted like that, but not that many would have it in their eyes. Like I said, that would be inordinately rare. And my gggf was no angel by any standards which is evident by his 5 wives and 18 children.. and the 3 widows who tried to claim widows pension at the same time since he did not bother to dissolve the marriages, and that threw the War Dept into a frenzy of an investigation to find out which wife was the legal wife and started questioning whether his eye problem was due to non-service causes... hence the 300 pages of testimony.

William was doing provost guard duty at the Little Rock Railroad depot between Nov 1863 and May 15th, 1864 when he contracted the eye infection.

He was sent to the Little Rock Hospital a couple weeks later and his eyes became so bad he was sent to Desmarres Eye and Ear Hospital in Chicago on June 22, 1864. Apparently, his eyes were nearly an opaque gray-white covering which rendered him almost totally blind and had difficulty seeing to walk by the time he was discharged on disability on Jan 3, 1865.

The soldiers and William also mentioned the chronic lung infections they acquired during a hard 121 mile march from Helena, AR to Little Rock. (in addition to varicose veins in both legs and piles.) I found the numbers of chronic lung conditions among so many of the regiment's members that it also caught my attention and I thought about the possibility of anthrax in the soil which they might have inhaled during the march.. I know anthrax was really bad back then... but there are plenty of other things as well. But according to the depositions, the lung problems were specific to the soldiers on that march who continued to have problems for the rest of their lives. The eye infections did not occur until about 9 months later in Little Rock. There was no mention of gun powder in any of the reports, so I tend to rule that out and I cannot find anything in William's records to indicate that he was ever engaged in a battle and the doctors would have noted it.

Scurvy was not mentioned in any of the dozen doctor's reports in his file, but I decided to look up the symptoms caused by scurvy (lack of vitamin C) and there is no mention of eye infections or similar problems associated by Scurvy. While Scurvy can be fatal if left untreated, it is quickly curable with Vitamin C. Apparently, when Citrus fruits were not available, the vitamin C was obtained by eating potatoes or drinking a special tea. As you probably know, the British sailors were called Limey's because they used limes to combat scurvy, while the German's chose to use Saurkraut to prevent scurvy and according to what I read.. I think in the Wikipedia, that was where the nickname, "Kraut" came from. There is a good article in there.

Here are the medical symptoms of scurvy:

Dark purplish spots on skin, especially legs.
spongy gums, often leading to tooth loss.
bleeding from all mucous membranes.
Pallor.
Bleeding gums.
Sunken eyes
Opening of healed scars and separation of knitted bone fractures.

Here are some names of other 77th Ohio Inf soldiers and officers whose depositions are in William's file to basically testify that William had healthy eyes until they were in Little Rock and they talk about the lung and eye infections which were prevalent among the members of the Ohio 77th. This is not all of the names:
Hiram A. Blower, company C or A (hard to read writing)
M. V. Clutter, pvt company C or A.
In his deposition, he stated, “Sore eyes were very common in our regiment.”
J. M. Mitchell, 1st Lt of Co A
Capt William Robinson

Still working on more research on the medical ailments during the civil war and 19th century medicine which I will post as I find out some more.

Midge