Have we the best possible ambulance system? : Reprinted from the Christian examiner, January 1864 : and published, for gratuitous distribution, by the committee of citizens who have in charge the sending of petitions to Congress for the establishment of a thorough and uniform ambulance system in the armies of the republic.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Have we the best possible ambulance system? : Reprinted from the Christian examiner, January 1864 : and published, for gratuitous distribution, by the committee of citizens who have in charge the sending of petitions to Congress for the establishment of a thorough and uniform ambulance system in the armies of the republic. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    making after this model: no description of the model, no state- ment of the reasons for adopting it. The Army Regulations, in the last edition of 1861, prescribe the number of ambulances to a regiment, (fee, and that they shall be made according to a model to be furnished the Quartermaster's Department by the Surgeon-General; and, further, alloivs the use of horse-litters, the litters to be similar to the stretchers before described. Not a word about the litters used and proved in the Crimea. Whether the Surgeon-General, among his other duties, found time to pre- pare a model for the Quartermaster's Department, we do not know, but there is nothing of it in his Report. This is all the record we have been able to find of action by the government upon this first branch of the subject. Let us pass to the second. The best ambulance is of no avail if in the hands of cowardly, ignorant, inefficient, or unfeeling men, and the best way of raising, organizing, and disciplining the men who are to have charge of the ambulance, the personnel of the ambulance-train, is even more of a desideratum than the best model for the ambulance itself. To understand this branch of our ambulance system, it is necessary to understand something of the gradations of au- thority in our constituted military rulers. Congress has by the Constitution the supreme power to make rules and regulations for the government of the army.' The President has a like but subordinate power as Commander-in- Chief. The analogy between the relation of the War Depart- ment to the President, and that of a chief of staff to his general, if not perfect, is still striking, as is also the analogy between the relations of the War Department to the several departments of the Adjutant-General, Quartermaster-General, Surgeon-Gen- eral, <fec., and the relation of a chief of stajff to the other staff officers. All these departments speak with the authority of the President, and.for all the armies of the Union. The commander of an army in the field has supreme power as to matters not already regulated by Congress, or the President, acting either personally or by one of the departments, and not withdrawn from his jurisdiction by them. If Congress, then, has not legislated upon the matter of an ambulance system, nor the