Original Articles.
DOCTORS AS CIVIL AND POLITICAL OFFICERS.
By D. G. CRAWFORD,
Lieut. col., I.M.S.,
Civil Surgeon, Hughli.
When, after the final suppression of the Mutiny, the Government of India was transferred from the Company to the Crown, considerable changes took place in the various branches, military and civil, of the Company's Service. Among others, the fate of the Indian Medical Service was under consideration, and for long hung in the balance. For over four years, October 1860 to March 1865, no new commissions were given in the Service, pending a decision as to its fate, whether total abolition, amalgamation with the Army Medical Department, or a renewed lease of life. For some time the second appeared to be the most probable decision. Indeed, matters went so far that the Lancet of 27th June 1863, quoting from the Times of India, gives what were at that time supposed to be the terms on which amalgamation would take place. These terms, in brief, were that all officers of the Indian Medical Service were to be transferred to the Army Medical
Department, the new Infantry Regiments then being added to the British Army, were to be officered from those among them who volunteered for general service; those who did not so volunteer were to serve in India only, and were to retain a prior claim to Native Regiments and to civil appointments; all alike were to retain their claims on the funds, which would be guaranteed by Government; all were to be allowed the choice of Indian or British pension rules; a sufficient number of promotions from Assistant-
Surgeon to Surgeon to be made, to equalize the proportion of Surgeons to Assistant-Surgeons with that in the Army Medical Department; promotion to Surgeon-Major to be made at twenty years' service, without deduction of
periods spent on leave; pay to be consolidated, and headmoney abolished. Commenting on these terms, the Lancet remarks that the senior officers
of the I. M. S. will get little benefit from amalgamation, but the juniors will obtain a great acceleration of promotion However, all fears of
amalamation were put to rest by the issue of the new I. M. S. warrant of 7th November 1864.
It was during this period of deliberation between the assumption by the Crown of the Government of India and the issue of the new warrant of 1864, that the minute by Outram, from which the following paragraphs are extracted, was written. This minute is dated 2nd January 1860. Sir James Outram was then Military Member of Council in India, a post which he held from April 1858 to July 1860.
The preliminary education of medical men places them on a level, in respect of intellectual accomplishments, with the average of those with whom it is our good fortune to recruit our Cuvamanted Civil Service,—and above the average of our purely military officers; and their profession of (professional ?) education gives them qualifications for aiding in developing the resources of the country, and in ameliorating the condition of its inhabitants. They are necessarily acquainted, to a greater or less extent, with Geology, Botany, and other branches of Natural History. To their researches do we owe most, if not all, the economic discoveries in Natural History by which the East has of late years enriched the industrial resources of the world. And it is superfluous to indicate the many benefits which a knowledge of Natural History will enable a district officer to confer on the people of his district. As superfluous is it to dwell on the vast importance to the people of this country, amongst whom one overworked Civil Surgeon can rarely travel, that their District Officers should have that knowledge of the laws of health and of practical sanitary economics which is demanded of every candidate for a medical diploma. The knowledge of Medical Jurisprudence, possessed by every medical man, would be of incalculable value to district officers in the detection and prevention of crime, enabling them to arrive at definite and correct conclusions in very many cases wherein, from want of such knowledge, doubt must under existing arrangements necessarily exist in their minds, to the detriment of the interests of justice; and, as in the case of the doubtfully insane, to the danger of life and property, and the prolonged sufferings of the helpless. And, to conclude a series of illustrations which might easily multiply, I need but glance at the boon that would be afforded to the villages in the more remote parts of the country by the occasional passage amongst them of gentlemen competent to afford them medical aid,—to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and ease to the suffering,—who, but for the advent amongst them (for magisterial and fiscal purposes) of 'a kind physician skilled their wounds to heal' might for ever seek relief in vain from the local native practitioner.
"Believing, as I do, that medical officers are admirably qualified for civil executive duties, and that their extensive employment in such duties would be advantageous to the material and social interests of the people, I am not less satisfied that it would tend to the elevation and improvement of the Medical Service itself. In the medical, as in all professions, there are 'round' men, whom a mistake on their own parts, or an ill-judged selection on the part of their parents and guardians, have thrust into
