Typhoid : a destroyer of armies, and its abolition / by Leigh Canney.

  • Canney, Leigh.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Typhoid : a destroyer of armies, and its abolition / by Leigh Canney. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    typhoid, the destroyer of armies, AND ITS ABOLITION. By LEIGH CANNEV, M.D. (Lend.) Tuesday, 12th November, 1901. Sir William H. Broadbent, Bart., K.C.V.O., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., in the Chair. IN asking your consideration to-day of a scheme which I have pro- posed for the prevention of one of the greatest evils in war, I am encour- aged to address this meeting of experts, feeling confident that you have assembled here in the public interest, with a desire by your counsel to assist the nation to avoid in the future the recurrence of those evils it has lately suffered and may shortly be again called upon to face. 1 feel confident that, if you are of the opinion that the scheme I shall propose is likely to lead to a marked reduction of these evils and the disasters that have often accompanied them in the past, and if you regard the organisation and effort involved to prevent the same as reasonable and practicable, you will not allow yourselves to be moved from the resolution that in the public interest this scheme in its essential principles shall be carried out. Without actual military experience, but with considerable civil experience in the successful prevention of these same evils in the vast camps of European and native workmen employed upon the great barrage works of Egypt, I have taken the initiative in this movement, as I have observed that those actually engaged in the administrative work of our Army and officers generally, feeling themselves part only of an intricate machine, hesitate to make proposals involving radical changes which too often meet with signs of active disapproval and hasty rejection. Hence arises a strong inclination to allow theories which are antiquated to remain in force, reforms which may meet with any opposition to be left un-urged. Inertia reigns supreme. The intelligent officer, fast bound in chains of discipline, rapidly succumbs to the inertia, disturbed only by occasional impulses of “ I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me.” New methods often involve departure from accepted traditions, and too often are met with a prompt “ impracticable ” or “ never,” a reply which really represents only the “ personal equation,” or time required to absorb the idea. Such replies are an automatic function of the brain, and A