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

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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$r sa ] this, fuppofingit to be true, cannot authorize us to in-« fer that the former are lefs ufeful than the latter, be- caufe while the mofl: ferious and difficult cafes are in- variably removed into the general hofpitals,and only the • {lighter ailments allowed to remain in the regimental, it may be expeeffed that very few perfons will die in the latter, and that a portion of thofe who are ill of fever in its wmrft forms,of dyfentcry,and other dangerous difeafes, muff be lofi, how'cver great may be the fkill, care, and comforts provided for their aid. But let it not be fup- pofed that every death reported in the returns of the general hofpitals is to be juflly attributed to the medi- cal praflice which is there employed in the treatment of the lick : it has been too common, as even Dr. Jack- fon admits, (p. 393 of his Outline of the Hiffory and Cure of Fever,J “ not to^receive fevers at general hof- pitals, till advanced in progrefs, fometimes till near the ■period of fatal termination : the mortality (he adds] then appears, great and the management of the hofpital is blamed where there is no jufl caufe of blame; ^ neither is it rare that regimental furgeons, having patients in their own hofpital whofe lives they defpair of, fend them into the general hofpitals, fometimes wdien there is danger of their expiring on the way, in order that their deaths may not happen in the hofpital of the regi- ment, and that the refponfibility thereof may attach folely to the officers of the hofpital ftaff. Dr. Jackfon mentions {1805, p. 61) the “ opening which is given by general hofpitals to the regimental furgeon, of remov ing from under his care fuch petfon or perfons as feem in his opinion likely to encounter a malady of danger By the word “ receive” Dr. Jackfon means to fay tha^: the patients arc notfent till,&c.j for when/e;?/ they are alway.!» received*$