Page:Introductory lecture delivered to the class of military surgery in the University of Edinburgh, May 1, 1855 (IA b21916469).pdf/16

15 department not only in a false, but in a helpless and undignified position. It has risen to a height which calls aloud for a remedy, if the British soldier is hereafter to receive that assistance from the skill of the surgeon to which he has so nobly entitled himself— that assistance which I am sure it is the desire of the nation that he should receive.

In former days I have known a successful representation to issue from the weakest voice in the department. I have known an assistant-surgeon of three years' standing to bring down the censure of the Government upon the medical storekeeper at one of the presidencies of India, for hesitating to supply him, at once, with the articles he required. The young man's requisition was sent back to him for amendment, but instead of doing this, he stated the facts to his commanding officer, saying that the requisition should stand upon record, and if the storekeeper was unable or unwilling to comply with it, it was for him to say so, and to state "the reason why." The Colonel who, at the time, commanded a large army about to take the field, galloped off with the correspondence to the Governor, by whom the storekeeper was reprimanded, and the