Page:Introductory lecture delivered to the class of military surgery in the University of Edinburgh, May 1, 1855 (IA b21916469).pdf/35

34 on the appearance of my pupils, observed, that Sir James M'Grigor would require to extend his patronage—enough to show that Dr. Lawson did not win his honours without a formidable competition.

There is only one other point. Gentlemen, on which I should wish to be indulged with a few words; but as I have already trespassed upon your time, and have elsewhere expressed myself on the subject, I will endeavour to be brief. I have been very sorry to find anything said which is calculated to disparage our regimental hospitals, or any countenance given by gentlemen whose judgment I respect, to the opinion that they are only adapted to peaceable times, and that a forty years' peace has disqualified the medical officers of the army from expanding their views to the management of a general hospital.

This seems to me to be altogether a gratuitous assumption; and I would observe that it was not in a time of peace, but of war, that the advantages of our regimental hospitals became fully developed. Hear what the late venerable Director-General says upon this subject! In a letter to his friend the late Dr. Chisholm, written at the termination of the