Robert Jackson, M.D., late inspector-general of army hospitals / [Le Roy Crummer].

  • Crummer, Le Roy, 1872-1934.
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Robert Jackson, M.D., late inspector-general of army hospitals / [Le Roy Crummer]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a liberty, I should be inclined to say that our ordinary exercises are flat and insipid in their nature; they occasion no exertions and excite no emulation: they neither improve the active powers of the body nor inure the soldier to bear fatigue and hardship. . . . Sloth and indolence are the bane of a soldier in every climate; exer¬ cise and action are the greatest preservatives of discipline and of health. . . . But everyone knows that walking, running, wrestling, leaping, fenc¬ ing and swimming, are often called into actual use in the practice of war. These are such exercises likewise as excite emulation, and are practiced with pleasure by the individual. They harden the body, increase the power of the limbs, and by furnishing the officer with a view of the different degrees of activity, may often enable him to place his men in the ranks, according to the uniformity of their exertions: a more useful mode of arrangement in time of action* than uniformity of exterior form. . . . Handling a knife in reality is the least part of a regimental surgeon’s duty. . . . And as I read, I realized that here before me, and also in all the other training camps in America, the ideas of Robert Jackson on army discipline were being carried on for the first time in the entire history of wars. Naturally, a keen interest was aroused in the personality of this prophetic army surgeon, and my inquiry disclosed a man of wonder¬ ful personality, with a broad comprehension of the duties of a military surgeon; an author of no mean repute in his day, but one who had been quickly forgotten; a hygienist who had made many innovations and advances in medical science, most of which have since been erroneously attributed to other authors; a gentleman who had come in contact with the brightest minds of his day, and not to his own disadvantage. Dr. Jackson was rather pugnacious in disposition and at times insubordinate, but in the long run he was generally on the right side of his controversies. I am sure that some of the details of his life and achievements will be of interest to others who are amateurs of the neglected incidents of medical history. Robert Jackson was born in Scotland in 1750. At the age of eighteen he matriculated in the medical school of the University of Edinburgh and remained there for three years. This was at the time of the height of the popularity of the university, when Monro, primus, Cullen and Black were all teachers. In 1774 he went to Jamaica as assistant to Dr. King at Savannah-la-Mar, where he first came in contact with the British Army, in which Dr. King was then serving as contract surgeon. He left Jamaica in 1778, going to New York, where he became attached to the 71st Regiment (British). He served through the southern campaign until captured and paroled in 1782, when he returned to