Remarks on the Examining Medical Board for Indian Appointments, as constituted from younger members of scholastic medical establishments in this metropolis and unaided by the advice and experience of Indian Army Medical Officers at home. In a letter to Sir Charles Wood.

  • Bird, James, 1797-1864.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the Examining Medical Board for Indian Appointments, as constituted from younger members of scholastic medical establishments in this metropolis and unaided by the advice and experience of Indian Army Medical Officers at home. In a letter to Sir Charles Wood. 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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    disadvantages, in respect to promotion, emoluments, retirement, and honour, than their military cotem- poraries of equal ranks, and further injustice and neglect need not have been added to this catalogue of complaints. Though in the matter of nominations to the medical examining Medical Board for India, I by no means doubt the honesty of your own inten- tions, I must arraign unconditionally the judgment of your medical advisers, who, through the mists of prejudice or self-interest, could not apparently discern either superior medical acquirements or merit, except among the most junior ranks of the profession in this metropolis. The principles of examination for the candidates, and the practical system adopted for carrying out such examination, are intimately connected with the efficient working of the new India Act, and with the ultimate prac- tical efficiency of medical men selected for India. Neither the qualifications now required from the candidates, nor the purely scholastic means of ascer- taining the superiority of individuals, are likely to secure such practical efficiency among the men selected; while thousands of our European and native soldiery in India, their wives and their chil- dren too, must owe their welfare or misery to the practical bearing of the professional principles taught to those selected, and who are to fill up the vacant ranks of the Army Medical Service abroad. The examiners nominated for medicine and surgery, be- longing as they do to the Medical Schools of Univer- sity College, and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, may judge the candidates’ qualification according to their notions of teaching adopted by their own schools,