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THE SANITARY CARE OF THE SOLDIER. 
not consider that the officers who fill the post of Quartermasters are 
the proper people for this work; they do their work in the best pos¬ 
sible way, and we could not get on without them; but I maintain that 
it is essential in the sanitary care as in the governing of a regiment 
that an executive officer, the representative of the Commanding Officer, 
should meet my officer, and that the inspection should be made con¬ 
jointly, so that the reports that are made shall reach myself and the 
Commanding Officer straight and direct. The Quartermaster repre¬ 
sents not the executive side, but an important administrative side if 
you please; but the command of English soldiers which, mind you, 
implies much power in our army, also implies great and most serious 
responsibilities; and, therefore, throughout my service at home or in 
India I have endeavoured in the regiments I was mixed up as senior 
Medical Officer to get a Subaltern Officer as well as the Quartermaster 
to go round with my Medical Officer at these inspections. The result 
has been in every way excellent. You can get the work done well, 
and it is astonishing what a different thing sanitation becomes under 
such a condition. The sanitary inspecting officers then, of the various 
batteries or regiments, make out their weekly reports of the sanitary 
inspections made on the Friday and Saturday, and, on the Monday 
morning, I myself had when in India and have every week here, a 
regular sanitary conference with the sanitary officers serving under my 
orders; that is to say, I meet all the Medical Officers of those regi¬ 
ments, and there is no sanitary question or shortcoming so far as my 
lights go (and I have had 29 years of a soldier’s life) that is not fully 
and freely discussed, and I read over the diaries. If anything has 
gone wrong I say, “ Have you written about this to the Commanding 
Officer ?” The Medical Officer replies, ec Yes, I have.” “ Then bring 
me the reply ; what is it ?” And I would say to officers commanding 
the various units that when Sanitary Medical Officers write letters to 
them, of course, they look for an answer; but very constantly we wait 
and no answer comes. I have found the matter so difficult to deal with 
in some most sickly stations that I have been at, that I went to the 
trouble of getting a form printed, saying at the bottom, “ Will you 
please favour me with an account of what you propose doing in this 
matter so that I may fill up my own sanitary reports.” I think such a 
sanitary report form much needed in our army.- 
Having read the letters and the diary, I advise with the officers as 
to the course to be pursued. Should the Commanding Officer write 
back, and say, “ I regret to say I am unable to carry out your sugges¬ 
tion on account of so-and-so then the matter, so far as it lies between 
those junior sanitary officers and the Commanding Officer, ceases; it 
passes to me then, and I myself write to the Commanding Officer of 
the regiment pointing out the necessity of such-and-such a suggestion; 
and when he replies, if it is a senior officer writing to me probably he 
may modify his opinion and the thing may be done, or he may reply, 
“ I regret I cannot see my way to carry out the suggestion.” Then the 
matter ceases between him and myself. I then write a letter to the 
Principal Medical Officer pointing out that I have addressed Colonel 
so-and-so as to the fact of his taking out the men at such-and-such an 
