Letter to the Right Hon. Viscount Cross, G.C.B., Secretary of State for India / by Surgeon-General Maclean.

  • Maclean, William Campbell, 1811-1898.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Right Hon. Viscount Cross, G.C.B., Secretary of State for India / by Surgeon-General Maclean. 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.

    5/8 (page 5)
    The chair is now held by Professor Notter, a pupil of Parkes' and for five years the assistant of De Chaumont. In his hands it is certain that Military Hygiene will be taught on the lines and in the spirit of his distinguished predecessors. It is said that Hygiene is taught in the Civil Schools. It is in some schools as a post graduate course ; but what is taught is not the Hygiene of Armies. In addition to all that is comprised in the term Public Health, the course at Netley embraces the service of the soldier; the conditions in which he is placed in barracks at home and in hot climates, in huts, tents, and camps; hospital encamp- ments ; his food, cooking, clothing and equipments; the work he has to do, gymnastics, marches in all climates, and the duties of medical officers during marches; eflTects of military service; army statistics in all their various branches; service on board ship ; transports for healthy troops, the same for sick troops ; hospital ships ; preparations for war, entry on war, actual war, regulations in war; causes of sickness and mortality ; hospitals in war; sieges ; climate; meteorology; disinfection and deoderisation; the prevention of specific and non-specific diseases. The above subjects occupy about 32 lectures. In addition, on every other day, an hour and a half is given to chemical and microscopical examination in the laboratory ; the examination of water, air, food, beverages, and condiments. Is knowledge of the above a necessary part of the training of a modern Army Surgeon wherever he serves ? There can be but one answer to this question—it is. If so, can this knowledge be given in the Civil Schools, in addition to the long course which the young medical student has to go through, to enable him to qualify and satisfy the yearly increasing demands of his examiners ? The only possible answer is, it cannot. When we are told that all that is required in the way of practical Hygiene for Army Medical Officers is what is embraced in an ordi- nary course of lectures on Public Health, we are told what is not correct; nothing but sheer ignorance of the subject can justify such an assertion. If this doctrine comes to be received and acted upon, the public must be prepared to see the education of the medical ofiicers of the British and Indian Armies revert to what it was in pre-Crimean days, with the inevitable consequences.