166 
Extracts from Domestic Journals. 
MEDALS TO MEDICAL OFFICERS. 
[♦From “ The Lancet.”] 
After a long opposition, the surviving heroes of the Penin- 
sular war, from Maida to Toulouse, and of the long series of naval 
engagements which began with Lord Howe’s victory in 1794, 
and ended with the naval fights between the English and 
Americans in 1814 and 1815, are all to be rewarded by a medal. 
In this portion of our naval and military history, the medical men 
of the armies and navies of Great Britain bore their part, and 
conduced in no mean degree to the brilliant successes it com- 
memorates ; yet, according to custom, those of our medical 
brethren who served in these wars will have no share whatever in 
the decorations about to be conferred. We feel called upon to 
protest against this, as being an act of the greatest injustice. In 
times of peace or war, the avocations of the military and naval 
surgeons are as arduous, and we venture to say as honourable, as 
those of their brother officers, while they are attended by peculiar 
perils of contagion and infection, from which the fighting staff are 
in great measure exempt. To their peace services it is that the 
military profession owe the knowledge of the economy and physique 
of fighting men. Many of the most eminent military writers have 
been medical men, and some of the greatest names in medicine 
grace also the military section of our profession. Harvey narrowly 
escaped being killed by a cannon-ball at the battle of Edgehill ; 
John Hunter served at the siege of Bell-isle ; Pringle was with 
the army in the Low Countries for nearly twenty years ; and Sir 
Gilbert Blane, to whom the prevention of scurv} r in our fleets is 
mainly due, saw a long period of active service. In the day of 
battle, as we have before had occasion to shew, the personal hazard 
incurred by the military surgeon is as great as that to which the 
rest of the troops are exposed, and in all enterprizes of danger the 
surgeon is called upon to take his chance with the rest. It may be 
objected that surgeons do not engage in actual fighting; but neither 
are the officers of an army, from the commander in chief down to 
ensign, called upon to engage hand to hand with the enemy, except 
in self defence ; and this of course the surgeon would do, if necessary. 
The duty of the officer is in directing — in wielding and impelling 
the power of the men under his command to the proper point, with 
