Page:Introductory lecture delivered to the class of military surgery in the University of Edinburgh, May 1, 1855 (IA b21916469).pdf/13

12 redress through the orderly officer, who visits the hospital daily, for the very purpose of hearing complaints, and who (with all respect be it spoken) may be quite as good a judge of port wine as the doctor. Of this I am quite sure, that in the old war there were ten captains in my regiment better judges of this matter than I was. I have lived to see much in the medical department of the army—I have lived to see this department a second time declared unequal to its duties; but I trust that neither you nor I will live to see the Chief of the Medical Staff again reduced to the necessity of repelling offensive insinuations as to a missing cargo of wine.

It was my fortune to serve for some time in a quarter of the world where the purveyor, or commissary of the sick, and the surgeon were, until a recent period, combined in the same person—a combination most peculiarly favourable to the pocket of the surgeon, but not equally so to the health of his regiment. This is now happily abolished in all quarters of the world, and I am sure that no honourable or high-minded man will wish to see it revived. How far it ever was from meeting with my approbation, the following passage from my "Outlines,"