Notes on the condition of the Indian medical services / by John Macpherson, M. D. (Assisant surgeon, Bengal Army).

  • Macpherson, John, 1817-1890
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the condition of the Indian medical services / by John Macpherson, M. D. (Assisant surgeon, Bengal Army). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    should always go by seniority. It is not so in the Queen's Medical Department, or in the Company's military and civil services, and it certainly has not always been so in Madras. In the three first, the more responsible appointments are bestowed, on a mixed system of seniority and of selection, and inefficient men are often passed over. We know of nothing in favour of the present system in the Medi- cal Department, but the argument, ad misericordiam, a charitable unwillingness to pass by men, who have the claims of lengthened service. Fortunate indeed must that depart- ment be considered, if it alone, of all the public services, can command an eternal youth of talent! Assuredly the present footing of things is not such as to do the Service any credit, .and without «eome change there seems to be no chance of securing active or efficient men for the higher appointments of the Service. Besides bettering the condition of the full surgeons, two or three other modes of accelerating promotion have been suggested, and any of them M ould act beneficially if they could be brought into operation. The first of these plans is to give additional annuities. Before this can be done, it must be ascertained that the Fund can afford to give them, or, if it cannot, that the Service is prepared to make up the funds necessary to provide for other ones, and the sanction of the Court of Directors would be re- quired. It has, indeed, been proposed to make up a separate Fund to give additional annuities independently of those sanctioned by the Court of Directors, but any such attempt would be injudicious, and would, in all probabibty, end in failure. We can see no objection to a fair representation of the state of the case being made to the Court; the pressing necessities of the Service might be urged, the bad effects which have already resulted, in the present state of things having driven so many young surgeons to retire, who will long remain a burden both to the Fund and to the India House, that it would be no great stretch on the part of the Court to extend their liberality to allowing a seventh or an eighth one, especially now, when the annuities are taken up by men of a good many years' service, and who will not, therefore, be so long on their Pension List; they might perhaps also be reminded that in their letter of 25th April 1829, they sanctioned as large a number as 12 annuities, though since then they have only agreed to 6 being given