168 
MEDALS TO MEDICAL OFFICERS. 
bodies sewed up in hammocks, and washing about the deck for 
want of strength and spirit on the part of the miserable survivors 
to cast them overboard ; and every form of loathsome and excru- 
ciating misery of which the human frame is susceptible ; such are 
the pictures which the narratives of nautical adventure in those 
days continually offer. At present, the scurvy is almost completely 
eradicated from the navy — partly, no doubt, from increased and 
increasing attention to general cleanliness, comfort, and diet, but, 
mainly, from the constant use of a simple and palatable preventive. 
If the gratitude of mankind be allowed on all hands to be the just 
meed of the philosophic physician, to whose discernment in 
seizing, and perseverance in forcing it on public notice, we owe the 
great safeguard of infant life, it ought not to be denied to those 
whose skill and discrimination have thus strengthened the sinews 
of our most powerful arm, and obliterated one of the darkest features 
in the most glorious of all professions.” 
This description, it is worth observing, applies only to about 
seventy or eighty years ago. 
Thus, then, we have attempted to shew that medical sailors and 
medical soldiers deserve to form an integral part of the profession 
of arms, and that they ought to receive their meed of honour and 
decoration when medals are to be worn and ribbons displayed. 
They ought not to be treated as mere hirelings, as they now are ; 
and governments may rest assured, that unless the naval and 
military branches of our profession receive the same stimulus as is 
awarded to other sections of the army and navy, the state does not 
receive all the benefits, and call forth all the services, which the 
profession is capable of rendering. We do not deny the present 
efficiency of the military medical staff of this country ; but taking 
human nature as it is, in its strength and weakness, there can be 
no doubt that the prospect of military honors would be a stimulus 
to the highest exertion — to exertions which mere pay can never 
compensate. Military and naval medical men deserve that this 
should be conceded to them for their own services; and they have 
an additional claim in the great services which the profession of 
medicine has rendered to the profession of arms. We advise 
medical officers who served in the actions for which the new medal 
is to be given to send in their claims to the War Office and the 
Admiralty ; and we should hope such claims would be efficiently 
supported, at the one, by Sir Jas. Macgrigor, who is as much a 
soldier as any general, and at the other by Sir Wm. Burnett, who 
is as much a sailor as any admiral, in the United Service. 
