An exposition of the case of the assistant-surgeons of the Royal Navy / By a naval medical officer [i.e. J.O. McWilliam].

  • McWilliam, J. O. (James Ormiston), 1807-1861 or 1862.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An exposition of the case of the assistant-surgeons of the Royal Navy / By a naval medical officer [i.e. J.O. McWilliam]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    friends, begging them to induce medical men to enter the service. But the scarcity, and even total want, of candidates has been by no means unfre¬ quent since Sir William’s accession to office at the Admiralty. Not twelve months ago, he told Mr. Hume that “ if he had been asked to provide an Assistant-Surgeon for any ship, he would have been compelled to admit that there was no candidate for the appointment.”* In the Report from the f Select Committee on Naval, Military, and Ordnance Esti¬ mates,’ presented during the latter part of the past year, it is stated that “ the Director-General is de¬ sirous that medical officers, on first entering the service, should attend at one of the great naval hospitals for at least six months before they embark for service afloat. Circumstances frequently render this impossible, and the Director-General states that for a considerable time past efficient Assistant- Surgeons have become so scarce, that upon a ship being commissioned, or a foreign station re¬ quiring supernumeraries, the only available officers have been those who have recently entered. The scarcity of medical candidates for the navy is, by the Director-General, attributed in some measure to the following cause: namely, that the position of medical men on entering the service, with reference to their mess and berth, is felt by them to be inade¬ quate to their station in society; and that in con¬ sequence they get discontented, and discourage others from offering themselves as candidates.”f From the above extracts, it seems but too evident * Hansard, vol. xcviii, p. 1427. f Report from Select Committee, &c , 1838, p. 97. At this time there were thirteen Assistant-Surgeons on half-pay, of whom there were two unable to serve, and five had very recently returned from foreign service.