Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/139

to rescue the young, the brave, and the beautiful, from an untimely tomb, and restore them to the society of their afflicted friends; and their usefulness to the world is no small source of self-congratulation; and it is the most gratifying retrospect of my service in India, that I never lost a lady patient, and that I passed through the late Burmese war without losing an officer of my charge. When some scourging epidemic crosses the frontier, enters the camp or the cantonment, panic strikes the little community, thins the ranks of the soldiers, crowds the hospitals with sick, and threatens to sweep away the native and the European, indiscriminately, to an unexpected grave, the doctor will be looked up to as the guardian of the public health, as the protector, to whose skill one and all may soon be indebted for the preservation of their lives. Then is the time to have his merits duly appreciated; then all his professional science is called into action; then all his physical energy, and all his moral courage, find full scope;—then is the time to gather in a rich harvest of good opinions, that will afford food for envy, malice, and all uncharitableness for years thereafter, and lay a solid foundation for his professional character. Should he himself be attacked by the malady, fortunate will it be for him if he retain his reasoning powers unimpaired, and be able to conduct his own case to a success-