The medical services / [Sir Andrew Macphail].

  • Andrew Macphail
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The medical services / [Sir Andrew Macphail]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    civil from the military function, all the elements of a med¬ ical service came into being and into unison with the other arms. The Canadians were then equipped with the con¬ valescent camp, the orthopaedic centre, the command depot, the hospital ship, without which general hospitals are helpless either to complete a cure or dispose of their patients. To supply these essentials is the business of the staff. The medical service merely employs them after they are provided, as the gunner uses the guns that are placed under his hand. Only the vaguest echoes of the controversy crossed the Channel. The hospitals at the advanced base and on the lines, the field ambulances, the regimental medical offi¬ cers continued at their quiet work. They were already safe as an integral part of the army which they served; and the army has peculiar methods of protecting itself. In England the results were more marked. Discipline and loyalty in that part of the Canadian medical service installed in England were impaired; men became rivals who should have been friends; the reticence and silent devotion of the soldier gave place to murmurings and dis¬ content. In Canada the results were deplorable. The pub¬ lic mind was disturbed by speeches and writings that were always incomplete and sometimes false. The worst things were surmised, and the public came to believe that to the inevitable hardship of the soldier was added the cruelty of medical incompetence and neglect. Nothing is more sub¬ versive of morale in civil or military life. To that extent aid and comfort was brought to the enemy. The history of the Canadian medical services cannot be written apart from the history of the Canadian army. It cannot be written at all except as a component and in¬ tegral part of the history of the medical services in the whole expeditionary force. The present subject, therefore,
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