Page:Army sanitary administration.djvu/11

Rh In the course of years they will add immensely to our knowledge of army diseases, as well as of those incident to particular climates and seasons.

Although the first annual report under the new system, being a first report, does not give all the data, regimental and stational, required by the instructions, yet every succeeding year's experience will render these annual reports more complete and more valuable.

Of all these commissions Sidney Herbert was head and centre. He superintended himself carefully every step of their procedure, and took his share of the work, as well as the responsibility attaching to it in his public capacity, by identifying himself with the reforms. In England it is so much the custom to look upon statesmen merely in their political, and not in their administrative capacity, that it is almost forgotten that they have an administrative function at all. No one thinks of a secretary of state, e. g., as the head of an office which has in its hands the lives and morals of men. But Sidney Herbert, although his passion, his hereditary occupation, to which he was born and bred, was politics, yet made his administrative labours greater, set his administrative object higher, recoiled from none of its dry fatigues, and attained its highest usefulness. What has been well-advised to a rising statesman, he performed. He did not sink in politics the powers which were meant for mankind.

Army medical officers had felt much and just dissatisfaction with their position in the army. The royal commission advised therefore the preparation of another warrant, ensuring to these officers the rank and emolument to which their services entitled them. It was framed by Sidney Herbert, and issued by General Peel in 1858.

Another great reform was introduced into the Purveying Department, which, like many others, had no well-defined position, duties, or responsibilities. It was efficient or inefficient almost by chance. Like other departments, it broke down when tried by war; and all its defects were visited on the sick and wounded men, for whose special benefit it professed to exist.

To put an end to this, and to introduce method into the service. Lord Herbert issued in 1861 a new purveyor's code and regulations, re-organizing the department in accordance with the views expressed by himself, as Chairman of the Royal Commission. The regulations now define with precision the duties of each class of purveyor's officers, together with their relation to the army medical department. They provide all necessaries and comforts for men in hospital (both in the field and at home) on fixed scales; instead of requiring sick and wounded men (even in the field) to bring with them into hospital articles for their own use, and which they had lost before reaching it, These regulations have been already tried, both for home and field service, and have been found to answer every purpose.

Lord Herbert also named a committee to re-organize the army hospital corps. In former times there were no proper attendants on the sick. For regimental hospitals a steady man was appointed hospital sergeant, and two or three soldiers, fit for nothing else, were sent into the