- Email: [email protected]
ARMY SURGEONS.
49 office
were
performed in such manner as to call forth the warm
classical men-not read men, but practical men—not surgeons only, but " general practitioners’’-men of iron will, indomitable courage and perseverance, firm and quick judgment, and, relying on the accuracy of thatjudgment, men of decision and
acknowledgments of the Society. So far from being afflicted with the native infirmity of avarice, his failings in pecuniary matters are on the other side. In the expenditure of his hard-.earned income, he has often, where public objects were in view, been lavish to a fault; and in his personal habits he is as plain and thrifty as can be desired. Our Hindoo physician has not been more distinguished for his talents and accomplishments than for the gravity of his character and exemplary purity of his life. Of a singularly religious and reflective turn of mind, he has often, like Festus, been almost persuaded to be a Christian, when, like many of the best classes of his countrymen, he has been shocked by the immoralities of those professing that faith. He is only now in the thirty-first year of his age, and may, it is hoped, yet be spared to see better days and better example set before him,
and
reasons
forsaking the faith
which he has
promptitude.
Of such there are plenty, though many of them have not attended for three years’ " walking," or listened to the lectures of some well-paid professor, on subjects neither practical nor useful; and though they would not allow their energies to be wasted in dissecting putrid subjects, still they are to be found, and found in abundance too. Some, perhaps, have passed a session or two at an hospital, but from poverty or ill-health, or disgust at the really little to be learned there, the sad deficiency of any " surgical (and we may add medical) clinique," have left for more fertile sources of practice, and more useful fields for the exercise of their skill. Some have been driven to illegal (but not immoral) practices ! others have practised as assistants; and others have left a noble profession for some calling of more profit and less
hospital
which may come to appear irresistible fot of his forefathers, to the purest portions oj
always heretofore adhered.
anxiety ! Well, Sir, why not at once alleviate the horrors of war, and put an end to the petty jealousy of illegal practice by allowing these men, wherever they are, and wherever they obtained their knowledge, to become members of our colleges and
Correspondence.
halls ? Let all who will submit to the examination be admitted, and complaints of illegal practice and " Crimean cruelty" would. no more be heard! ARMY SURGEONS. Destroy the unfair monopoly of metropolitan surgeons,, and: ILLEGAL PRACTICE AND OUR ROYAL COLLEGES! the very men needed-those who have not wasted the days of their apprenticeship or assistantship-those who have learned To the Editor of THE LANCET. practical surgery in the mining counties, and the treatment of SIR,-In a letter you lately honoured with insertion in THE cholera, fever, and such like diseases, in the crowded parts of LANCET, I endeavoured to point out to the profession one great’ London, and our large manufacturing towns-those who could cause of the illegal practice they still continue to whine at. not brook the useless theorizing of our text-books, or the dull I wish to call attention to the fact, that the neglect of our monotony of the class-room-those men will come from every wounded soldiers, in a great measure, arises from the same’ part of the kingdom ! From the Land’s End to Ben Nevis, cause. " Twelve thousand lives dependent on the medicalsuch candidates will appear, ornaments alike to the profession department," which a writer from the spot testifies is " not of arms or medicine-" soldier-surgeons," who will second only disorganized but insufficient," and the few surgeons, whothe devotion of the over-burdened few at Alma and Inkerare "literally worked to death,"are almost without " medical and thus complaints will cease that our brave veterans, necessaries." " Remove the cause and the effect will cease," are suffered to expire without the aid of the healingart, merely is a good old maxim, and suggests the inquiry-What is the extortionate demands of lecturers and professors,. the gratify cause? I answer, without a doubt, a miserably slow andto and the covetous, worn-out conservative policy of our Colleges. incompetent Government, which trusts to the specious promisesof Surgeons, and other corporate bodies ! of Colleges of Surgeons. But the colleges have other interests’ Trusting these suggestions may meet the approval of medical to look after, and while the weird jingle of the winged light-reformers and Englishmen, ning is daily ringing in our ears the sad tale of thousands of" I am, Sir, your obedient servant, our "brave fellows "-England’s heroes-England’s defenders3 Jannarv. 18.55. V. T.B. - laid low by the sword and pestilence, we look in vain for any attempt to alleviate this Crimean cruelty. Cruelty for THE PROVINCIAL (METROPOLITAN) which England stands responsible-to relieve which England looks to her Government-and her Government to the medical ASSOCIATION. profession-or rather, to that little body of placemen, who To the Editor of THE LANCET. arrogate to themselves the title of its representatives. The not or of do the Colleges Surgeons represent profession, long SlR,-The letter of " One of the Original Members of the. ere this they would have found men able and willing to start Provincial Association" in your last, is an admirable one, and for the East. At the outbreak of any great war, surgeons shows in its true light the pitiable condition in which that must be in demand; but the Government, not troubling them- once respectable publication, the J ounzal of the Association, selves with medical affairs, apply to our Colleges of Surgeons. has been reduced by the efforts of Messrs. Cowan, Cormack,. But, Sir, it takes our colleges three years to make a surgeon, and Co. Surely the former editors of the Journal are amply and though there will be a rush into the profession, the dying avenged for the miserable job by which they were displaced, veterans of Alma and Inkermann cannot wait three years for in the contemplation of the straits to which their was to bethe surgeon to "staunch their gushing wounds." Surgeons very superior successor is placed. But though Dr. Ranking must be had-the Government is imperative-and the colleges, and Mr. Walsh may laugh in their sleeves (and small blame togranting the urgency of the emergency, remit three months. them either), what, I may ask, is to be done for those who, But what difference will three months make ? Shall we send like myself, have nothing to diminish the feeling of sorrow and. out men this time two years nine months to save the men now disgust which the sad prospects of our Association have induced. dying from wounds or cholera? Shall we, by our tardiness, Our once merry meetings, full of hearty good-fellowship, nowobtain the imprecations of the children and children’s children the arena of squabbling and rudeness! Our Journal, which of those who are spilling their best drop of blood in our de- was to have rendered every other, THE LANCET included, unfence ? and spilling it, too, without our making a single effort necessary, a miserable waste of paper and ink, a bad cross. to save them. between the IFeeHy Dispatch and the Record! Our funds. Already the country cries-Is it necessary to " walk an swallowed up in making good the losses upon the defunct hospital three years?" and while the colleges, one by one, London Jourizal! Truly we are in a pretty plight, and I seesullenly answer, " within three months, at least," the country but one way to better ourselves, which is for Sir Charles begins to see that fees and professorships are regarded by the Hastings to retire at once from the hybrid Association which colleges-contemptible sinecures and old-established regula- now exists, and unfold once more the banner of the old and tions put in the balance with the good of our soldiers-and a true Provincial MedicaL and Surgical Association. If he will genteel expenditure of money and labour thought necessary to do this, hundreds, now thoroughly disgusted, will rally around him, and we shall again witness that harmony, now, alas! only keep up the dignity of the profession. But the country will demand men, and if our slow-moving a matter of I am, Sir, yours, &c., corporate bodies will not supply them, the profession must. What we want are not acutely mathematical, or tastefully ANOTHER ORIGINAL MEMBER. January, 1855. " Audi alteram
partem."
’
mann,
history.
were
performed in such manner as to call forth the warm
classical men-not read men, but practical men—not surgeons only, but " general practitioners’’-men of iron will, indomitable courage and perseverance, firm and quick judgment, and, relying on the accuracy of thatjudgment, men of decision and
acknowledgments of the Society. So far from being afflicted with the native infirmity of avarice, his failings in pecuniary matters are on the other side. In the expenditure of his hard-.earned income, he has often, where public objects were in view, been lavish to a fault; and in his personal habits he is as plain and thrifty as can be desired. Our Hindoo physician has not been more distinguished for his talents and accomplishments than for the gravity of his character and exemplary purity of his life. Of a singularly religious and reflective turn of mind, he has often, like Festus, been almost persuaded to be a Christian, when, like many of the best classes of his countrymen, he has been shocked by the immoralities of those professing that faith. He is only now in the thirty-first year of his age, and may, it is hoped, yet be spared to see better days and better example set before him,
and
reasons
forsaking the faith
which he has
promptitude.
Of such there are plenty, though many of them have not attended for three years’ " walking," or listened to the lectures of some well-paid professor, on subjects neither practical nor useful; and though they would not allow their energies to be wasted in dissecting putrid subjects, still they are to be found, and found in abundance too. Some, perhaps, have passed a session or two at an hospital, but from poverty or ill-health, or disgust at the really little to be learned there, the sad deficiency of any " surgical (and we may add medical) clinique," have left for more fertile sources of practice, and more useful fields for the exercise of their skill. Some have been driven to illegal (but not immoral) practices ! others have practised as assistants; and others have left a noble profession for some calling of more profit and less
hospital
which may come to appear irresistible fot of his forefathers, to the purest portions oj
always heretofore adhered.
anxiety ! Well, Sir, why not at once alleviate the horrors of war, and put an end to the petty jealousy of illegal practice by allowing these men, wherever they are, and wherever they obtained their knowledge, to become members of our colleges and
Correspondence.
halls ? Let all who will submit to the examination be admitted, and complaints of illegal practice and " Crimean cruelty" would. no more be heard! ARMY SURGEONS. Destroy the unfair monopoly of metropolitan surgeons,, and: ILLEGAL PRACTICE AND OUR ROYAL COLLEGES! the very men needed-those who have not wasted the days of their apprenticeship or assistantship-those who have learned To the Editor of THE LANCET. practical surgery in the mining counties, and the treatment of SIR,-In a letter you lately honoured with insertion in THE cholera, fever, and such like diseases, in the crowded parts of LANCET, I endeavoured to point out to the profession one great’ London, and our large manufacturing towns-those who could cause of the illegal practice they still continue to whine at. not brook the useless theorizing of our text-books, or the dull I wish to call attention to the fact, that the neglect of our monotony of the class-room-those men will come from every wounded soldiers, in a great measure, arises from the same’ part of the kingdom ! From the Land’s End to Ben Nevis, cause. " Twelve thousand lives dependent on the medicalsuch candidates will appear, ornaments alike to the profession department," which a writer from the spot testifies is " not of arms or medicine-" soldier-surgeons," who will second only disorganized but insufficient," and the few surgeons, whothe devotion of the over-burdened few at Alma and Inkerare "literally worked to death,"are almost without " medical and thus complaints will cease that our brave veterans, necessaries." " Remove the cause and the effect will cease," are suffered to expire without the aid of the healingart, merely is a good old maxim, and suggests the inquiry-What is the extortionate demands of lecturers and professors,. the gratify cause? I answer, without a doubt, a miserably slow andto and the covetous, worn-out conservative policy of our Colleges. incompetent Government, which trusts to the specious promisesof Surgeons, and other corporate bodies ! of Colleges of Surgeons. But the colleges have other interests’ Trusting these suggestions may meet the approval of medical to look after, and while the weird jingle of the winged light-reformers and Englishmen, ning is daily ringing in our ears the sad tale of thousands of" I am, Sir, your obedient servant, our "brave fellows "-England’s heroes-England’s defenders3 Jannarv. 18.55. V. T.B. - laid low by the sword and pestilence, we look in vain for any attempt to alleviate this Crimean cruelty. Cruelty for THE PROVINCIAL (METROPOLITAN) which England stands responsible-to relieve which England looks to her Government-and her Government to the medical ASSOCIATION. profession-or rather, to that little body of placemen, who To the Editor of THE LANCET. arrogate to themselves the title of its representatives. The not or of do the Colleges Surgeons represent profession, long SlR,-The letter of " One of the Original Members of the. ere this they would have found men able and willing to start Provincial Association" in your last, is an admirable one, and for the East. At the outbreak of any great war, surgeons shows in its true light the pitiable condition in which that must be in demand; but the Government, not troubling them- once respectable publication, the J ounzal of the Association, selves with medical affairs, apply to our Colleges of Surgeons. has been reduced by the efforts of Messrs. Cowan, Cormack,. But, Sir, it takes our colleges three years to make a surgeon, and Co. Surely the former editors of the Journal are amply and though there will be a rush into the profession, the dying avenged for the miserable job by which they were displaced, veterans of Alma and Inkermann cannot wait three years for in the contemplation of the straits to which their was to bethe surgeon to "staunch their gushing wounds." Surgeons very superior successor is placed. But though Dr. Ranking must be had-the Government is imperative-and the colleges, and Mr. Walsh may laugh in their sleeves (and small blame togranting the urgency of the emergency, remit three months. them either), what, I may ask, is to be done for those who, But what difference will three months make ? Shall we send like myself, have nothing to diminish the feeling of sorrow and. out men this time two years nine months to save the men now disgust which the sad prospects of our Association have induced. dying from wounds or cholera? Shall we, by our tardiness, Our once merry meetings, full of hearty good-fellowship, nowobtain the imprecations of the children and children’s children the arena of squabbling and rudeness! Our Journal, which of those who are spilling their best drop of blood in our de- was to have rendered every other, THE LANCET included, unfence ? and spilling it, too, without our making a single effort necessary, a miserable waste of paper and ink, a bad cross. to save them. between the IFeeHy Dispatch and the Record! Our funds. Already the country cries-Is it necessary to " walk an swallowed up in making good the losses upon the defunct hospital three years?" and while the colleges, one by one, London Jourizal! Truly we are in a pretty plight, and I seesullenly answer, " within three months, at least," the country but one way to better ourselves, which is for Sir Charles begins to see that fees and professorships are regarded by the Hastings to retire at once from the hybrid Association which colleges-contemptible sinecures and old-established regula- now exists, and unfold once more the banner of the old and tions put in the balance with the good of our soldiers-and a true Provincial MedicaL and Surgical Association. If he will genteel expenditure of money and labour thought necessary to do this, hundreds, now thoroughly disgusted, will rally around him, and we shall again witness that harmony, now, alas! only keep up the dignity of the profession. But the country will demand men, and if our slow-moving a matter of I am, Sir, yours, &c., corporate bodies will not supply them, the profession must. What we want are not acutely mathematical, or tastefully ANOTHER ORIGINAL MEMBER. January, 1855. " Audi alteram
partem."
’
mann,
history.