Remarks on the constitution of the medical department of the British Army : with a detail of hospital management, and an appendix, attempting to explain the action of causes in producing fever and the operation of remedies in effecting cure / by Robert Jackson M.D.

  • Jackson, Robert, 1750-1827.
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the constitution of the medical department of the British Army : with a detail of hospital management, and an appendix, attempting to explain the action of causes in producing fever and the operation of remedies in effecting cure / by Robert Jackson M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    ( ^ ) inefTeclive, they are not ftridly fick. Further, as no reference is made to the mortality of dif- eafes of each clafs, the general view is fallacious. Itch is not mortal; the efl'ecls of punifhment rarely fatal; fore legs and venereal maladies, only fo, on few occafions. If the whole be thus confounded in one mafs, the medical officer can draw no profeffional inference; and the military officer can form no calculation of the value of his furgeon, or of the probable pro- duft of his hofpital for fervice. Thefe are how- ever important objeds. The return of hofpitals, which is a hiflory, in figures, of the heahh of armies, is capable of furnitliing the information required, if conllruded with a view to that ob- jea. A form is fubjoined to this work, calcu- lated to convey precife information. And it is added, that, if it appear, from a comparifon of thefe returns, that the refults as relating to mortality in each clafs of difeafe, to time re^ quired for cure, and to condition of recovery, be equal, or nearly equal, in hofpitals under the management of thofe who have had expe- rience, and of thofe who have no experience, it will not be deemed a forced inference to con- clude, that the medical art is of no value; if more favourable, under the management of thofe who have had no experience, it may be prefumed, that the fyftem of experience has been grounded upon an erroneous principle; but, if the advantage be decidedly in favour of expe. rience, it may then be admitted, that the art aftually