Page:Introductory lecture delivered to the class of military surgery in the University of Edinburgh, May 1, 1855 (IA b21916469).pdf/23

22 with my professional brethren in this distinguished seat of medical erudition—who have now been so long an atom in this "civil element"—who, amongst those who have closed a brilliant career, have been often in consultation with such men as Gregory, Abercrombie, and Liston—who have had the honour to rank amongst my colleagues in the University, such men as Thomson and Charles Bell, will be found wanting in respect for the civil branch of my profession. The civil members of the profession have evinced a most generous spirit in the way in which they have espoused the cause of the assistant-surgeons of the Navy; and I am sure they will sympathize with those men who have been spending toilsome days and sleepless nights under canvas in the Crimea, and are now made the scapegoats for errors committed at home. It grieves me to think that these men should find themselves, at the dose of a campaign, supplanted by others who have not borne the "burden and heat of the day." Could I believe that this was for the good of the public service, I would speedily be reconciled to it. But is it to be supposed, that men who have, like myself, been accustomed to see their hospitals broken up soon after midnight, to