Reply to Sir John Hall's 'Observations' on the report of the Sanitary Commission, despatched to the seat of war in the East, 1855-56 / by John Sutherland.

  • John Sutherland
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reply to Sir John Hall's 'Observations' on the report of the Sanitary Commission, despatched to the seat of war in the East, 1855-56 / by John Sutherland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    we might have had of the suggestions contained in the pub- lished Keport of the Medical Commissioners to the Hospitals, we have only to reply that we never saw the Keport until our work in the East was done. That Report contains many excellent sugges- tions, and much valuable information, but we have not been able to discover in it any sanitary recommendations bearing on the defects described in our report, except an objection against the occupation of the corridors in the Scutari Hospitals by sick, in which objection we happened to agree with the Commissioners. The duties of that Commission were of quite a different kind. Sir John Hall, page 55, coiisiders that all ordinary sanitary- information, except such as applies to Camps and Barracks, can be obtained from the popular and cheap publications of the day, treating on sanitary matters, a fact with which Ave were not pre- viously acquainted. Perhaps Sir John Hall will tell us from which of these popular publications he derived his own information. With reference to the letter addressed by Dr. Sutherland to Lord Shaftesbury and Sir James Clark, on the 9th July 1855, and part of which Dr. Hall has published at the end of his Observations, we would remark first, that the capitals and italics in the letter are not Dr. Sutherland's, but Sir John Hall's ; and second, that one most important statement in the letter, enforcing the necessity of securing by examination a large amount of knowledge on sanitary matters, on the part of the army medi- cal and other ofiicers, and which was the practical point of the letter, is altogether omitted. Lastly, that there is nothing in the letter, which in any way contradicts the statements in the Report, although there are two inaccuracies which must have remained uncorrected, in the absence of the documentary evidence supplied by Sir John Hall. The letter states that we have also found the medical officers thoroughly alive to the nature of the changes required, represent- ing them to the authorities, but without power to carry them out. This statement, as the context shows, refers exclusively to the camp, and neither to Scutari nor Balaklava. It was believed to be correct, because in one or two instances it had been found to be so, but the statement itself was made on the authority of verbal assertions, such as the following:— Every thing the Sanitary Commission has recommended, was recommended before, and the like. But it now appears, from Sir John Hall's published recom- mendations, that this was by no means the case. The other inaccuracy referred to is the following :—Sir John Hall quotes this from the letter. Diarrhoea has been prevalent, but there is a system of inspection in use for its discovery and treatment, which appears to work as well as could be expected. The Report throws doubts upon the truth of this, for it is therein stated, with reference to the army, that the inspection did not appear to have been so successful as in other instances. The statement in the letter referred both to Balaklava and the camp, in the former of which a very efficient system of inspection
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