hospitals are the County Infirmaries containing 150 or more beds. They are officered by the pick of the general practitioners of the district, and a few physicians who are members of the London College of Physicians.

The British taxpayer has a right to expect that his army surgeons shall have skill in diagnosis sufficient for all ordinary cases, and sufficient in extraordinary, unusual or very obscure cases, to recognise that they are such, that he does not thoroughly understand them, and that, if possible, a consultation with other practitioners should be held.

It would be asking of the army doctor almost superhuman virtue to expect him to consult with a civilian, however much his superior in qualifications and experience.

The British taxpayer, paying what he does, may fairly expect that his Army Medical Department shall keep itself au courant with all discoveries, and in good time introduce all improvements in medical or surgical practice. He may besides expect that in the event of war, the surgeons should have sufficient common-sense and business capacity to be able to select such medicines, and medical or surgical appliances, as may be absolutely indispensable for the treatment of the sick and wounded in the field, and to make requisitions for them and their transport. They should be able to form a rough estimate of the percentage of sick and wounded that will be in hospital at any given time, judging by the climatic conditions, facilities of obtaining food supplies, and water, and assuming an average rate of marching for infantry.

They ought to be well skilled in all sanitary matters, particularly as to the obtaining pure drinking water, or making provision for boiling infected or suspicious water. They ought to be able roughly to make chemical and microscopical examinations of water and milk. They should advise the G.O.C. as to the site and arrangements of a camp, subject of course to military exigencies; they should, in any event, choose the site of the hospital, remembering that it is far better to have a hospital within range of artillery fire, or even long rifle range, in a healthy situation, with ready access to pure water, than in the most sheltered nook where good water is not at hand, or has to be carried a long way. I had charge of a small hospital once in the West Indies of about forty beds, and I found that the average stay in hospital of dysentery patients was reduced by ten days, solely by giving them tank water instead of well water. I could not obtain any change of their diet, which was rice, salt fish and bananas.

They ought to be entirely independent of the combatant officers, except in so far as every one in a camp is subject to military and martial law. Of course in the last resort cedant armis toga, but the gownsmen ought to have the fullest liberty to express their opinions

as to the effect of any given order or plan of campaign on the health and death-rate of the men, without thereby being guilty of any breach of military law or etiquette.

Eg., it ought to have been within the competence of the senior medical officers of Lord Roberts' army when he left the railway for his famous march to Bloemfontein, to have written him an official letter warning him that by marching the men on half rations, and with bad water, through a country in which enteric fever is endemic, he would certainly place at least a sixth of his army hors de combat, assuming that none were disabled by wounds. It should have been possible for the P.M.O. without any disrespect to have asked Lord Roberts to place himself and his personal staff on the private soldier's half rations, for at least a fortnight, marching all the time on foot with a forty-pound load.

What the British public have not a right to expect is that they shall obtain men of great skill or special talent either as physicians or surgeons. The rewards offered by civil practice to supreme ability and skill are, and always must be, far superior to any the Army service can give. The Court physicians and surgeons are invariably civilians, and the military and naval ones receive only the honorary titles.

But beyond a fair amount of professional skill a little superior to that of the average general practitioner, they have no right to look. Least of all, have they a right to expect high administrative talent and ability—a talent which is as much congenital as is painting, poetry or music. A man is born with a genius for administration ; no education however careful, no diligence of cultivation will bestow it. The special studies of a medical man are of all things in the world the least likely to bring out even such administrative capacity as may be inherent in the candidate, and the latent talent for administration possessed by the average Anglo-Saxon, is neutralised in the R.A.M.C. by the Irish and Scotch members, who form the bulk of its members. The racial and national peculiarities of these two preclude them from being successful administrators. The excessive vanity of the one and the inordinate conceit of the other are quite antagonistic to that calm discussion, gentle spirit of compromise, and firm perseverance which render pure Englishmen of any rank and any degree of education such wonderfully successful and able administrators and organisers. Let a hundred Englishmen be shipwrecked on a desert island, with the loss of the captain and all the superior officers, they would at once assemble, elect an executive with full powers, which would at once issue orders, and form a community. Whatever differences there might be would be solved by the decision of the majority, to which the minority would at once yield. But a single Irishman or Scotchman would introduce an element of discord.

The British taxpayer has a right to expect that with all due consideration for the sick and wounded, the army doctor will bear in mind that wounds and sickness are inseparable from a state of war, and that their treatment can never, under the most favourable circumstances, be the ideal one. He will therefore refrain from ordering drugs and appliances which are needlessly costly, and expensive for transport, confining himself to such as are in daily use, and, as regards surgical appliances, of simple construction. The same rule will apply to food and medical comforts. I cannot see the necessity for champagne in a military hospital—a whiskey and soda, or brandy and soda will answer every purpose of champagne. Although much champagne was ordered at Scutari, personally I never ordered any.

In their intercourse with matrons, nurses and lay officials generally, they ought to be courteous and considerate, not making unreasonable demands on their care or attention, not too exacting, clear and decided in the orders they give, and firm in requiring implicit obedience. If it be objected, as I know it will be, that without distinct army rank the medical officers can never enforce or obtain obedience to their orders, I would ask how is it managed in civil hospitals? I have never but once had to deal with a refractory or wilfully disobedient nurse. Her I suspended, and reported to the Governing Board, who dismissed her at once.

The fact is that if the medical officers stick exclusively to their medical duties, are really earnest in the practice of the profession, and show a reasonable amount of skill, they need never fear diɛobedience. The worst they will have to deal with will be negligence and drunkenness.

What do the B.P. get at present for their very liberal pay and allowances? I write, of course, before the Minute of March 1903 has had time to produce much effect, and as things were in 1902 before the conclusion of the peace.

Well, you had a Medical Corps that was amazingly unpopular in the Army. One really never heard a good word said for the corps as a corps, although here and there a good word might be said for a particular officer. The departmental system having, except in the Household Brigade, superseded the regimental system for the employment of the junior ranks, there was no regimental esprit de corps, the young men temporarily attached to regiments on detailed duties were so often changed that they had no opportunity of entering into any close fellowship with the other officers, although they were, I believe, allowed to be honorary members of the mess.

There had arisen, in consequence of the assumption of military titles and Army ranks, a very bitter feeling on the part of the combatant officers, and a distance and "stand-offishness" which certainly seemed very strange to me. At Pinetown Bridge, where

there were generally several young officers either convalescent or able to move about, there seemed to be absolutely no social intercourse between them and the members of the R.A.M.C. I never saw them talking together; there was a tennis ground, but I never saw them playing tennis together. I had occasion to go into the mess room where I had been invited to luncheon, and wishing to leave my card, I looked round for a card rack-the waiter was not at hand-but I found only two or three cards, and none from inmates of the officers' sick ward, who I knew had gone away.

The disapproval of the assumption of military titles was openly expressed to me, because whenever I was introduced to a combatant officer, I made a point of requesting as a personal favour that he would address me as "doctor" and not as captain. I never used the latter title except in official documents. Even the P.M.O. at Pinetown Bridge yielded to my request, and used to call me "Doctor Sahib."

I am afraid that this repudiation of the military title made me unpopular with the R.A.M.C., for I was treated with such brutal harshness that I had to invoke the interposition of the New Zealand Premier, Mr. Seddon, who was, fortunately for me, in South Africa at the time, and who kindly interposed on my behalf. But when you consider the absurdity of men who have never so much as commanded a company, calling themselves major or colonel, for they entirely repudiate the medical part of the title, it is no wonder that the legitimate holders of military titles are inclined to treat these asses in lions' skins (for they are nothing else) with contempt and dislike. It is even now perfectly incomprehensible how men of more than average mental power and ability as I found all the officers of the R.A.M.C. with whom I came in contact to be, should insist on titles entirely foreign to their profession, and which only made them objects of ridicule and contempt. The stories that are told of them are most amusing. The title of surgeon-general has been retained, but the gentlemen holding that rank like to be addressed as "general," and are always spoken of by that title among their subordinates. I was talking to a nurse who had been a long time in South Africa, and in connection with the management of the hospital to which she had been attached, she said, "The general ordered so-and-so," I said that I was astonished that any general should interfere with such details of hospital administration. "Oh! but he is surgeon-general, only we always call him general."

A combatant officer sent an orderly with a message to a major, R.A.M.C., and the man saluting said, "Are you Surgeon-Major X., Sir ?" the reply was, "No, I am Major X., Royal Army Medical Corps."

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They have their rank and a hideous uniform. Instead of the

handsome medical staff uniform-scarlet with black velvet facings and cocked hat with green plumes, black morocco sword-belt and shoulder belt-as handsome a uniform as any in the Army, and quite distinctive; they have now a blue tunic and trousers with what is called "Murrey-coloured" facings, and a helmet. In this they look like officers of some foreign army. When I first saw one in

this uniform I asked him what corps he belonged to, and was astonished to find that it was the R.A.M.C.

As if to render the grant of the military titles contemptible, the Veterinary Department, the Army Service Corps, and the Paymasters' Department have all been granted Army rank!

I asked one of them what he would think and how he would feel if an Army order came out that he was to address every combatant officer, who had gone through a course of "first aid," by the title of Member or Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

The complaint that the officers of the R.A.M.C. devote their time more to drilling their orderlies and bearer companies than to attending their patients, I found to be universal. It crops up repeatedly in the evidence given before the Commission appointed to inquire into the treatment of the sick and wounded. I don't know how far this may be true, but this I do know, that during seven or eight weeks I spent at Pinetown Bridge Hospital, I never saw a medical officer reading a professional book or paper. When I was before the Medical Board that invalided me, although I was suffering from heart disease, asthma, and bronchitis, not one of the Board examined my cheet, or even felt my pulse, but depended entirely on the report of a young civilian doctor who had examined me in Durban.

When I was on the Medical Staff of the Crimean Army things were very bad. We had a number of old fossils in the higher ranks who had apparently learnt nothing by their long military service; they had no professional feeling, or regard for professional etiquette, and treated the junior members of the staff, who were quite their equals professionally, and often their superiors, with great hardship and discourtesy. We had to address them as "sir," and to obey implicitly their orders about the cases, when they gave any. I remember when I went to Fort Pitt, Chatham, as a candidate, after being house surgeon to a London and provincial hospital for about sixteen months, I was treated by the divisional surgeon exactly as if I had been an unqualified dresser. I could not change a dressing or order half a pint of beer, or a dose of black draught for a patient. Those days were spoken of to me by a subsequent director-general, as the "bad old times." Still there was no attempt to assume military rank. We juniors, although we said "sir," did not salute our seniors when addressing them.

But it is said that without the substantive military rank, the medical staff would not have the necessary authority over the