A manual of practical hygiene : prepared especially for use in the medical service of the Army / by Edmund A. Parkes.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of practical hygiene : prepared especially for use in the medical service of the Army / by Edmund A. Parkes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    PREFACE. The Royal Commission appointed in 1857 to inquire into the sanitarj' condition of the army in England, prepared a new edition of the Queen's Hospital Eegulations, which was published by authority in 1859* The new Eegidations entirely altered the position of the Army Medical Officer. Previously the Army Surgeon had been entrusted officially merely with the care of the sick, though he had naturally been frequently consulted on the preservation of health and the preven- tion of disease. But the Regulations of 1859 gave liim an official position in this dii'ection, as he is ordered to advise commanding officers in all matters affecting the health of troops, whether as regards gaiTisons, stations, camps, and barracks, or diet, clothing, drill, duties, or exercises (p. 7). The Commission also recommended, that, to enable the Army Surgeon to do tliis efficiently, an Army Medical School should be established, in which the specialties of military medicine, surgery, hygiene, and sanitary science might be taught to the young medical officers entering the army. This work is an attempt to carry out the wishes of the Commissioners as regards sanitary science, by providing a text-book of Hygiene, illus- trated by examples drawn from army life, for the gentlemen attending the Army Medical School. The Official Medical Regulations have been taken as the basis of the work. I have endeavoured to see what the Regulations demand from the medical officers of the army, and what are the duties they chiefly have to do, and then to explain how the Regulations are to be carried out. In writing this work I have had to deal only with one sex, a * Regulations for the Duties of Inspectors-General and Deputy-Inspectors-Genoral, and for the Dntics of Staff and Regimental Medical OflBcers, &c., 1859. This work is also termed, for shortness, Medical Regulations.