Medicine and the public.

  • Sprigge, S. Squire (Samuel Squire), 1860-1937.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medicine and the public. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    of the Army Medical Service, but the department as a whole came in for severe criticism. Not one of the popular books dealing with the South African cam- paign failed to give a chapter or more concerning the Corps; while the serious works, as well as the letters of medical men at the front, dealt with its deeds in copious detail. Explanations of, and remedies for, the deficiencies which observant writers noticed in the medical work at the front were forth- coming in every direction, while deeply ignorant persons rushed to the rescue with impossible remedies for non-existent conditions. From every side, in fact, there was offered a rich choice of pre- scriptions for reviving the drooping condition of the Army Medical Service. Testimony to the devotion and skill of individual members of the Corps was as emphatic as any of the criticism lavished upon the faults of the system ; but condemnation pro- duces more effect and lingers in the memory more persistently than praise, and the general idea gathered by the public was that, despite the skill and self-devotion of a few, the Army Medical Service had broken down badly. Of course, it did nothing of the kind. Its work as a department was more affected by the difficulties of transport than was the work of other departments of the army, and all criticism that lost sight of this fact, however generously inspired, was unfair. Then came the Royal Commissions to inquire into the management of the South African hospitals, and the care of the sick and wounded (see Appendix § 1), the reports of which, forming the first well-balanced expressions of opinion upon the medical conduct of