An exposition of the case of the assistant-surgeons of the Royal Navy / By a naval medical officer [i.e. J.O. McWilliam].

  • McWilliam, J. O. (James Ormiston), 1807-1861 or 1862.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An exposition of the case of the assistant-surgeons of the Royal Navy / By a naval medical officer [i.e. J.O. McWilliam]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ward-room officers, provided with cabins, ser¬ vants, &c.* III. Those officers who having completed their general and professional education, enter the service at the age of manhood, at once qualified for their several duties. Under this head are included Chap¬ lains, Surgeons, Assistant-Surgeons and Naval In¬ structors, all of whom, with the exception of the Assistant-Surgeon, are ward-room officers from the day they join the service. It is thus quite evident that the Assistant-Sur¬ geon is the only officer who having reached the period of manhood, and acquired a profession alto¬ gether independently of the Service, is refused ad¬ mission to the society of other officers of his own age. It may he asked why is this so ? Is his rank, that of a Lieutenant in the Army, too low to qua¬ lify him for ward-room privileges ? The simple answer to this is, “ there are already two officers in the ward-room, one of whom, the First Lieutenant of Marines, is the equal, and the other, the Second Lieutenant of Marines, is the inferior in rank to the Assistant-Surgeon. Notwithstanding the express wording of the order in Council which says, “ the said Naval Medical Officers should have the same rank with the[officers of the same class in his Ma¬ jesty's land forces/’ the degradation of the Naval Assistant-Surgeon is strikingly apparent on any occasion when troops are embarked in a man-of- war. The Army Assistant-Surgeon then by right, v * The qualifications required of a candidate for a commission in the Royal Marines, are—that he understands common and decimal arithmetic ; the first six books of Euclid ; algebra, as far as simple equations ; trigo¬ nometry and the use of logarithms ; to write English correctly from dictation; and that his age shall not be under sixteen, nor exceeding twenty-one years.