A letter to the Commissioners of Military Enquiry; explaining the true constitution of a medical staff, the best form of economy for hospitals, etc. With a refutation of ... a letter by Dr. Bancroft, army physician, dated April 28, 1808 / [Robert Jackson].
- Robert Jackson
- Date:
- [1808]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A letter to the Commissioners of Military Enquiry; explaining the true constitution of a medical staff, the best form of economy for hospitals, etc. With a refutation of ... a letter by Dr. Bancroft, army physician, dated April 28, 1808 / [Robert Jackson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
83/92 page 79
![disposed in convenient hospitals, the task would not be a hard one. Dr. Bancroft con-' siders this as extravagant and ridiculous, and forms a case for himself by which he affects to demonstrate its absurdity. I do not notice his epithets for they contain no argument; but I have said the thing is practicable, and I hold it to be my duty to shew to you at this time that it is easy according to the plan on which I pro¬ pose to act. It appears, in looking into the lists of the medical staff which was prepared for the ex¬ peditions in ] 795, that one physician w^as al- loAved for every two thousand men, one staff surgeon or apothecary for every thousand, and one hospital assistant surgeon for every hundred and fifty. There were thus provided for a force of tw^o thousand men, eighteen me¬ dical staff officers : these, qualified as they ought to be, I hold to be equal to the care of two thousand sick. In an hospital list consist¬ ing of two thousand persons, there are not probably two hundred who are actually in critical circumstances. These I consign, as may be supposed, to the care of the regular phy¬ sician ; the slighter and less complicated cases I commit to the staff surgeons; the assist-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3188684x_0083.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
