A letter to the Commissioners of Military Enquiry, containing a refutation of some statements made by Mr. Keate, Surgeon General to the Forces, respecting the Medical Department of the Army / [Robert Jackson].

  • Jackson, Robert, 1750-1827.
Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Commissioners of Military Enquiry, containing a refutation of some statements made by Mr. Keate, Surgeon General to the Forces, respecting the Medical Department of the Army / [Robert Jackson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    consumption;—the judgment of those who act on the spot may be trusted to regulate the quantity. The observations, which the surgeon general has placed against your suggestions and recommendations, mark a casuistry which far exceeds the measure of Mr. Keate’s intellect. The case is drawn up with ability; and the surgeon general, I am ready to confess, owes much to his counsel, who has glossed his defects and errors so artfully that those who read superficially may be dis¬ posed to regard him as a man of zeal and judgement. The subterfuge is substituted wdtli dexterity for argument, and the authority is applied with address to cover the reason of the thing. You did not I presume say, or suppose that Mr. Keate erected hospitals or formed depots by his own power. The order for execution, you know perfectly well, proceeded through the War Office; but, you expected that the surgeon general, as he appears, by what he says himself, to be the responsible member of the Board, was capable of shewing that every medical arrangement adopted by his recommendation was the best and fittest that could be devised : And we must allow that, if hospitals w^ere erected in England, and depots of stores and medicines formed in given po¬ sitions on good grounds originally, it is strange that these hospitals should be abolished, the buildings converted to other uses, or that the depots should be broken up, the materials removed to other service, while the necessity still continues ; for we are still at war, and we are not even secure from the chances of invasion. But, if the surgeon general be responsible for the reasonableness and propriety of erecting permanent hospitals and forming depots in certain positions in England ; it is also ex¬ pected that, as the person intrusted with the power of apportioning the medical staff for the army or detach¬ ments