A letter to the Commissioners of Military Enquiry : containing animadversions on some parts of their fifth report ; and an examination of the principles on which the medical department of armies ought to be formed / by Edward Nathaniel Bancroft.
- Date:
- 1808
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A letter to the Commissioners of Military Enquiry : containing animadversions on some parts of their fifth report ; and an examination of the principles on which the medical department of armies ought to be formed / by Edward Nathaniel Bancroft. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![Hot with to have the iuh]e&L perplexed by contradi£^ory ftatements.—If the fa6ts>,however,which I fhall adduce at their proper places, in explanation of the evidence of thefe gentlemen, be corre61, and I have the ftrong- eft reafonto believe they will prove fo, you may per- haps ultimately partake of thofe regrets which I feel, on account of your having relied fo entirely upon it as to negle6f all other teftimony. I fhall but (hortly notice the latter part of what I have lately quoted from your Report, 1 mean that where you fay you “ have endeavoured by an exami- nation and comparifon of the accounts of general and regimental hofpitals, to judge of the merits of the army medical fyflem.” This certainly appears to me as a very ivjijffident mode of eftimating the real merits of any fyftem of this nature ; there being many confiderations belonging to it which can never pro- perly become matters of account; fuch as the va- rious degrees of fuperiority in the profcflional treat- ment of the fick whereby their recoveries may be accelerated or retarded, and their lives preferved or facrificed ; and alfo the different degrees of inftrudfion which may be afforded to the younger medical officers, with other circumftances, which cannot be accurately eftimafed and reduced into pounds, (hillings and pence. And if the fimple amount of expenditure w’ere to con- flitute the only criterion for decifion, and that arrange- ment be deemed the hejl which is found to coji the ieajiy none could be fo good as that which fhould leave the Tick without any affiftance, by refufing to dilburfe one penny for their relief. On aflive fervice,where rapid movements very often decide the iffue of battles and the fate of nations, it mull: be obvious that fuch movements could never bo executed if regiments were to be embarraffed and rc-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21928526_0036.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
