240 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



sician general, Sir Patrick Dun. In 1751, for the first time, English 

 surgeons were permitted to wear the uniform of the troops to which 

 they were attached, and in 1783 a law was passed prohibiting the 

 sale of the position of surgeon, but this abuse nevertheless continued 

 for a long time. A real medical service in France dates from 1708. 

 In the seventeenth century military hospitals began to be estab- 

 lished in garrisoned towns and in the rear of armies, and to these as 

 bases the wounded were removed. Partly mobile hospitals came 

 into restricted use about 1700, but were not adapted for accompany- 

 ing marching troops. For many years these hospitals usually carried 

 no tentage and did not reach the field till a day or two after the 

 battle. By a treaty between England and France these hospitals 

 were declared neutral and were treated as such. The Napoleonic 

 wars brought out the amplification of sanitary resources by the use 

 of combatant soldiers detailed as litter bearers and surgeons' helpers. 

 About this same time the barber-surgeons were being generally re- 

 placed by trained surgeons, several of whom were attached to a regi- 

 ment, while medical staff officers were being placed in charge of the 

 sanitary work with armies to coordinate their sanitary resources. 

 Only in 1779 had the barber-surgeons in the British army been given 

 the grade of sergeant, and even then each of them had to expect a 

 whipping if one of his grenadier patients died under his care. Am- 

 bulance wagons to transport wounded gradually appeared as a part 

 of the equipment of regiments. About 1810 so-called flying hospitals, 

 able to follow troops, began to be roughly organized. A further 

 great improvement in the type of medical men with the colors 

 occurred, with corresponding improvement in their status. In 1815 

 Dr. Jackson, who was appointed by the Duke of York physician 

 of all the forces, demanded military honors and decorations for his 

 officers. He said that such titles were irrelevant to scientific men, 

 but that the common soldier would obey the medical officer better if 

 he possessed rank in the army. Jackson's view is as true to-day as 

 in the past, and forms the basis of the present grading and organiza- 

 tion of medical departments in all armies. However, in the English 

 service up to 1871, medical officers absolutely belonged to regiments, 

 were exclusively under the control of their commanding officers, and 

 had no powers of command. As a result of our Civil War and the 

 Franco-German conflict in 1870, the importance of increased mo- 

 bility for sanitary troops was recognized in the British service, the 

 regimental system was broken up, and gradually a medical staff 

 with mixed medico-military titles developed; but its officers were 

 still denied many of the powers which pertained to similar grades 

 in the line. Only in 1898, when the designation was changed to 

 the Koyal Army Medical Corps, were British medical officers granted 

 full military titles and most of the accompanying powers which 

 correspond with like grades in combatant branches of the service. 



