Remarks on army surgeons and their works / by Charles Alexander Gordon.

  • Charles Alexander Gordon
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on army surgeons and their works / by Charles Alexander Gordon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    service in the West Indies. Dr. Jackson soon afterwards, in order the more clearly to indicate the importance of the duty of examining recruits, wrote, Tlie selection of persons pos- sessed of intellectual and physical capacity for the practice of war, may be regarded as an object of high national concern; it demands the deepest attention of patriotic statesmen, and the closest study of scientific soldiers. Sir James McGrigor pointed out the ineligibility as recruits of tradesmen and manu- facturers, especially those of large towns. Dr. Liscombe con- demned the system of enlisting lads and very young men. Dr. AVilliam Fergusson, anotlier army surgeon, expressed a very decided opinion that the soldier would last longer if his re- quired size and stature were not pitched at too high a standard. Staff-surgeon Lightbody recommended that no recruit whatever be taken the circumference of whose chest below the nipples and scapula is under thirty-two inches; and more recently Henry Marshall wrote a work which remains a text-book on this subject. Statistics.—Army medical officers were the first to institute trustworthy records of diseases. In the Observations of Sir • John Pringle we for the first time meet with the term Return, when he was serving with the army at Ghent in 1742. Dr.' John Hunter advocated the use of Registers of cases in hospi-' tal. Dr. Eeid introduced regular records of disease in the line of the army. Dr. Eollo did a similar service for the artillery; and Sir James McGrigor organised a system of statistics for the entire army. Post-mortem examinations were practised in the army by Cleghorn before they were so in civil practice. Brocklesby, Pringle, and Sir Everard Home all advocated this method of investigating the action of disease. Transport of Sich.~E&,ron Percy introduced into the French army tlie system of ambulances, or movable hospitals, which Larrcy perfected. In the British service the want of a similar organization was deplored by Jackson, Hennen, Guthrie, and Milhngen. Sir James McGrigor states in his Autobiography that lie endeavoured, but without success, to gain over the Duke of Wellington to the advantages of an efficient system of ambulances; and Sir Rutherford Alcock, when servincr under Sir De Lacy Evans in Spain in 1838, had occasion to regret the want of these contrivances. Sir George Balingall, in his work on Militaiy Surgery, enters fully into tlie subject of transport and ambulance, and still more recently Professor Longmore of ]Sctloy has brought the question down to the latest date in his valuable Ireatise on Ambulances. Dnuikenncss.~T\xQ prevalence of this vice in the army has K