Page:Introductory lecture delivered to the class of military surgery in the University of Edinburgh, May 1, 1855 (IA b21916469).pdf/15

14 in the hospitals on the Bosphorus that the difficulties of the medical department began. At the very commencement of this hitherto unfortunate war, long before a single shot was tired, it would appear that the most urgent representations were made by the Head of the Medical Department, and this, too, upon points of paramount importance to the health of the army—the clothing of the soldier—the formation of a numerous hospital corps—the appropriation of ships for hospital purposes, or for carrying disabled men to England, or to some intermediate station, so as to relieve the crowded hospitals at the seat of war.

How these very proper representations came to be so signally disregarded, it is not for me to explain. It may be only a part of that multiplication of office, and subdivision of responsibility of which the nation seems now so heartily sick, and which tends to render even a Commander-in-Chief in a great measure powerless. No man is better aware than I am of the evils which have arisen, and must arise, from a limited authority to the medical officers of the British army, but this would seem to have progressively increased since my time, and has now risen to a height which has placed the