Page:Introductory lecture delivered to the class of military surgery in the University of Edinburgh, May 1, 1855 (IA b21916469).pdf/26

25 some experience of both, and I say advisedly, that although the military hospitals are not in all respects what they might be, there is, in these hospitals, much of that arrangement, promptitude, and self-reliance, which ought to characterize all military proceedings. The quantity of superfluous writing in the medical department has, I am glad to see, been well exposed by my friend Dr. Dumbreck, in his evidence before Mr. Roebuck's Committee, and I fear that this department has to answer for a large share of the £70,000 worth of stationery said to have been sent out with the army of the Crimea.

The absurd system of checks and counter-checks, so forcibly exposed by the late Secretary-at-War, would still seem to be in full operation. Of this I recollect a very ludicrous instance, and was in some degree a party to it, when a very young man. The hospital expenditure account was "returned for correction," and the surgeon, the hospital-sergeant, and myself, set our wits to work, and mustered all our joint stock of arithmetic to discover the error, but being unsuccessful, the account was sent back to the Medical Board, and was twice again "returned for correction." As if to make the