Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/58

 London tailor, from whom they can procure clothes at half the enormous prices charged by tailors in India.

4. INSTRUMENTS.—Government furnish for the public service all instruments and medicines of the best description, from a lancet to an amputating knife, from calomel and opium to arrow-root and tapioca. All medical stores are kept in the presidency dispensaries, with branch depots at convenient places in the interior. All instruments and the greater part of medicines are imported from England. However, the Assistant-surgeon will do well to provide himself with a complete pocket dressing case and a small portable medicine chest,which he will find very useful when unattached, and when he has no access to the public stores; and if he has good mechanical hands, a portable tool chest will be of great service.

5. BOOKS.—A select little library of the latest medical books should not be forgotten. Books on general literature he will find cheaper in India than at home; and as for periodical literature, he will find a book-club in every station and in every regiment, well supplied with the latest information.

Civilians and officers of engineers, of artillery, and cavalry, will do well to be guided as to their particular equipment by some officer of their own