to be improvised, on no defined principles, and on no defined personal responsibility. The wonder is, not that they broke down, as they did in all our wars, but that they could be made to stand at all. In all our wars our general hospitals have been signal failures, fatal examples of how to kill, not to cure. All this is now changed; and, with the most ordinary administrative capacity, the sick during war may now have every necessary care and comfort.
This code is the best ever framed; and, in practice, has been found to succeed in every climate, whether at home, in garrison, or in the field. It has been successfully tested in two expeditions, since issued by Lord Herbert in 1859. On the day which took him from us, its general hospital system was realized in the hospital at Woolwich, including its governor, principal medical officer, captain of orderlies, female nurses, and their female superintendent, &c., which system will be transferred to the magnificent hospital, now being built there, of which Lord Herbert was the founder, and which will bear his name. He also directed a plan to be drawn up for the organization of a second general hospital at Devonport, on the same principles, which will shortly be carried into effect.
Army Medical School at Chatham 1857-60.
The third sub-commission was charged with organizing a practical school at Chatham, for instructing candidates for army medical service in military hygiene and other specialities.
Formerly young men were sent to attend sick and wounded soldiers, who perhaps had never dressed a serious wound, or never attended a bedside, except in the midst of a crowd of students, following in the wake of some eminent lecturer—who certainly had never been instructed in the most ordinary sanitary knowledge; although one of their most important functions was hereafter to be the prevention of disease in climates, and under circumstances where prevention is everything, and medical treatment often little or nothing.
The sub-commission drew up an admirable scheme; and the school at Chatham was opened by Sidney Herbert in person, in 1860. Already its results have been most satisfactory. A large number of men of high attainments have been sent from it into the army; and we may confidently expect a lower sick rate and death rate (especially on foreign stations and on field service) as one of its results, as well as higher hospital efficiency.
Army Medical Statistics, 1857-61.
The fourth sub-commission was charged with the duty of re-organizing the army medical statistics, which were then in such a condition as to afford very incomplete data, especially during war. These statistics have been reformed, and are now by far the best and most useful in Europe. They can be reduced with much less labour, and with much greater promptitude than formerly; because the manner of recording cases is now much more precise, and there is a special division in the army medical department for reducing them to obtain the results; while they enable the exact state of health, of every regiment and station, to be ascertained, and any unusual amount of disease, with its removable causes, to be brought at once to the cognizance of the authorities.
