Dearth of candidates for the Army Medical Service : reply to letter of Secretary of State for War.

  • Handyside, P. D. (Peter David), 1808-1881.
Date:
[1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dearth of candidates for the Army Medical Service : reply to letter of Secretary of State for War. 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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    relation to their several duties. By the complete setting aside of Regimental Medical Officers, no position more painful than that assigned to an army Medical man can he conceived. He is the only officer there who has no status, he is allowed, only through the courtesy of the Regimental Officers, the comforts of the Mess. The removal of Medical Officers fromRegiments was thus destructive of their social status and other attractions of a military life, depriving them — especially the Juniors — of signal advantages secured by the Regimental system. By it the Surgeon enjoyed a home—so to speak—and his social position was recognized by the public, he forming really a part of the Regiment. In short, it is beyond a doubt that a very large proportion of the Medical men who entered the Service were induced to do so by the same motives which actuate combatant Officers and Recruits generally. These are mainly the hopes of getting identified with a Regiment, and of seeing the world in the company of Comrades who know and interest themselves in one another. As long as the Regiment is the unit of the British Army this feeling will remain. The Regimental, with some modification of the present Departmental system, seems to be what is required. But the arbitrary manner in which the old Regimental system was abolished, was indeed a cruel hardship on the great bulk of the Medical Officers of the Army. It entailed on them substantial loss, and so thoroughly embittered them as to have proved perhaps the cause that has most contributed to the existing break-down. II. Secondary Causes.—§ 1. As specimens of the ordinary War- Office-treatment of Medical Officers—in which, when any rectifi- cation of former injustice is granted, it is seldom fully and freely done—there is a hitch or a sting of some kind left—two instances may suffice. In the matter of Departmental Lodging Allowances, approved on 7th January 1877, for all Medical Officers not required to live in barracks, no right was conferred, and each case had to be fought out on its own merits. Again, by the Army Mobilization Scheme—providing a supply of horses for officers under the rank of Major—a difference is made in the Artillery Officer being supplied with Officer’s saddlery, his Medical comrade with non-commissioned officer’s. § 2. The great difficulty in obtaining Leave of Absence is a fruit- ful source of discontent. Latterly, on account of the paucity of Officers, Surgeons arriving home after a five-years’ tour of Foreign Service have not received one day’s leave of absence! Again, leave being restricted to sixty-one days in the year—the same limitation as no doubt applies to the whole staff of the Army, but Medical Officers are exposed to the evil influences of climate and contagion a hundredfold more than the Staff—whereas Combatant o Officers, who are not exposed to like depressing influences, have two-and-a-half months at a time, and can get forty-eight hours, and a week, or more at times, not counted out of their long leave.