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. - - ' . " i^t. THE LEADER. [Saturday,
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rt. >?x A « „. |L litrflltirF*
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Critics are notthe legislators, bat the ...
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The Magazines have not gone out with the...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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. - - ' . " I^T. The Leader. [Saturday,
. - - ' . " i ^ t . THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Rt. ≫?X A « „. |L Litrflltirf*
Ittewttnt-
Critics Are Notthe Legislators, Bat The ...
Critics are notthe legislators , bat the judges and police of £ tp » ture . . They do not make laws-theVinterpret and try to enforce them . -Edinburffh Review . ,
The Magazines Have Not Gone Out With The...
The Magazines have not gone out with the coaches , but we no longer look for Maga and Fbasbb as we did in the good old times when " Magazine night" was a monthly event on the road . The increasing multiplication ot weekly serials deprives the monthlies of their former interest ; m many cases we find the Magazine article to be little more than a rechauffe of what has already appeared in various forms in the daily and weekly press . Not unfrequently this monthly rechauffe appears to be more carelessly and hastily written than the original fragments of which it is made up . We doubt if it would be possible to find more negligent wr iting , more flippant presumption of tone in any newspaper struck off at red heat than m many pages of these Magazines , which occupy an intermediate position between the journalistic press and the quarterly reviews ; supposed to partake of the actuality of the one , and of the grave deliberation of the other . As it is , they are often equally superficial and dull , and nothing can be more intolerable than levity without animation , and weight without
( strength . We do not direct these remarks particularly against our present list of Magazines , though we have seldom encountered so many pages with so few passages which our readers would thank us for quoting . The article that deserves the first place in our present notice is , we think unquestionably , the first in the March number of the Dublin University Magazine—a . magazine , we may parenthetically remark , generally readable and pleasant . The title of this excellent paper is The Soldier-Surgeon ; a Tale with a Moral for the War Office , and a very timely and important moral it is . The subject is the professional career of Baron Labrey , the eminent soldier-surgeon of the armies of the Republic and the Empire , of whom Napoleon said to Dr . Abnot at St . Helena , " If the army ever raises a column to gratitude , they should erect it to Larrey . " " These sentiments Napoleon vouched in his last will by a bequest of 100 , 000 francs to Larbet . l L'homme le plus verlueux quefate jamaisconnii . ' "
Baron Labbet first entered the public service " aj a medical oflficer of the French royal navy" in 1787 . But he became disgusted with a sea life , and having obtained his discharge , " he betook himself to Paris in time to profit by the surgical practice provided for the schools by the first storms of the revolution . " On the declaration of war , " he joined the head-quarters of Marshal Ltjckneb at Strasburg , on the 1 st of April , 1792 , and was soon after placed in surgical charge of Keiiebman ' s division . " At the assault of Spires by General Custine , " Larrey first became sensible ot the inconveniences attending the position of the field hospitals , which are fixed by the military regulations at a league from the army . " " Sixty years afterwards , " observes the reviewer very pointedly , " nearly from day to day , a similar inconvenience was suffered by the wounded soldiers of the British aftny at the heights of the Alma . " We are still ' suffer ing from the imbecilities of routine which in the French service were swept'away by the great "Revolution ^ -
" Larrey , " continues the reviewer of his memoirs , " does not seem to have found his genius impeded by official routine , nor -was he in the least subject to that fear of exciting the vengeance of his departmental superiors by stepping a little beyond the line of their comprehensions , which has worked such woe to the sick and wounded in the hospitals of Balaklava and Scutari . " It was then that Labbet fully organised " a rudimentary field-hospital , or ambulance volante , " and he tells us it " made a great sensation among the soldiers , " w ho felt that they would not be left wounded on the field to the inclemency of the skies , or the tender , mercies of the enemy . But it was in 1797 , in the army of Italy , that the ambulance volante was brought to some perfection . And here let us allow the reviewer to speak : —
" Each division had a surgeon-major commanding , two assistant-surgeon-majors , twelve sub-assistant surgeon-majors ( two of whom acted as apothecaries ) , a lieutenantprovidore of the division , a sub-lieutenant , a mare ' cbal des logis en chef ( equivalent to serjeant-major of cavalry ) , two brigadiers ( equivalent to corporals of cavalry ) , a trumpeter ( bearer of the surgical instruments ) , twelve mounted hospital men , including a farrier , bootmaker , and saddler , a serjeant-major , two fourriors , three corporals , a drummer ( garoon d ' appareils de chirurgie ) , twenty-five infantry hospital men . To each division wero attached twelve light and four heavy carriages , manned by a mare ' chal des logis en chef , a mare ' chal des logis sous-chef , two brigadiers ( one being a farrier ) a trumpetor and twenty drivers . It will be seen that each of these divisions was , in fact , a corps complete within itself . The medical officers were mounted , and all , officers and men , were suitably dressed and armed with light swords . The holsters and portmanteaus of tho officers were furnished with the most necessary surgical appliances ; and tho men ,, mounted and dismounted , carried knapsacks containing reserve supplies of surgical munitions . Tho lqgion was under the orders of the
surgeon-in-chief of tho army ; its administration was conducted by a board composed of the medical and administrative officers of tho three divisions '; and its discipline and manoouvres were regulated by n special codo of instructions . Its duty was to take up the wounded from tho field , after having given them immediate surgical assistance , and to carry them to the hospitals of tho first line . The sub-lieutenants of the ambulance and the infantry hospital men wore also charged with the duty of burying the dead ; and tho former wero authorised to require such levies of tho inhabitants as might be necessary for that purpose . Tho carriages wero two-wheeled or four-wheeled , and by their form and weight they wore adapted to varieties of country . They could follow the moat rapid movements of tho advanced guard , and divide when requisite ; 86 that a single medical officer , with an orderly carrying all necessarios , and attended by a carriage , could repair to any spot whoro assistance was required . There can bo no doubt that this field-hospital train conferred tho most essential benefits upon the army Into which it was introduced ; but it would bo a very grave mistake to attempt the introduction of a servile copy of it into oux own service . What gave life and energy
to the French institution was the soldierly spirit , intelligence , and zeal of Larrey : and these qualities are not the products of mere material arrangements . The organisation of the ambulance volante became easy when the medical officer , feeling his responsibility , and animated with the military love of distinction , put forth the powers of his will . Nor was he ever content with using a mere machine , even when he had brought it to a state which he considered perfect . When he found himself engaged among mountains of difficult access , bat-horses or mules with panniers were substituted for carriages . In the Egyptian campaign the . difficulties of the desert were met and overcome by the employment of camels , bearing cradles for the wounded slung across their backs . In an unforeseen emergency , the vitality of the system proved itself in the manner shown in an incident of the battle of Eylau , when , upon the occasion of a panic created by a sudden movement of the enemy in the direction of the of with which he
ambulance , Larrey , having hastened the amputation a leg was encaged , " expressed , with force , his resolution not to abandon his post ; and all his iuniors rallying around him , swore they would never quit him . In this difficult conjuncture , " he continues , " Mr . Pelchet , officier directeur of the ambulance , knew how to display the resources of his character , his ardent zeal , and his rare intelligence " The surgeon-in-chief , in truth , knew how to draw out , and to foster those qualities , which , after all , are common enough among men ; and his own superiors knew the value of his abilities for such work , and at what price—no very exorbitant one in the end—they could secure the use of them for the public service . The market of intelligence , zeal , and ingenuity , is not worse provided nor dearer in Britain than in France . We , too , should soon find the wants of our army in all departments amply supplied , could we but take heart to cast loose the bonds of official routine , and to set theenergy , talents , and love of distinction of our men and officers free to work
in their natural channels . Labbey served throughout the campaign on the Rhine ; in 1794 he was 41 invited by the Representatives of the People with the army of Eastern Spain , to take the direction of the surgical service of that army ; was present at the assault upon the lines of Figxjeras , and during the siege of Rosas—" a sort of prototype of Sebastopol "—in the winter of 1794-95 ; returned to Paris to conduct a school of surgery ; repaired to Italy to " make a toucof inspection throughout the stations of the army , organising general and fieldhospitals , and taking all the measures he thought expedient for the improvement of the service ; forming " a school of anatomy and military surgery " in every principal town of Italy where there were French troops and hospitals . In 1798 he accompanied General Bonaparte to Egypt ; was at Alexandria , Cairo , the Pyramids , Aboukir ; served throughout the disastrous Syrian campaign ; and subsequently " with the Imperial Guard in the campaigns of Saxony , of Prussia , and of Poland ; in the campaigns of Spain in 1808-9 , and in that of Austria ;? ' again in Spain and iriTBavaria . " On the
12 th of February , 1812 , he was appointed surgeon-in-chief of the grand army ; " worked through all the horrors of Smolensko , the Moskowa , Borodino , and the retreat from Moscow , . served through the campaigns of 1813-14 , and was present at the great battles in Saxony and in T ; he retreat from Leipzig ; " took part- in . the- operations in France , bade a first farewell to Napoi-eok at Fontainebleau in 1814 , and in . the following year directed the field hospitals of the " guard at Waterloo . After the peace he was deprived of his position and honours by the Bourbons , but he declined high offers of service in the United States , Russia , and Brazil , and at the Revolution of 1830 his patriotism was rewarded , and the remainder of his life was " passed in honour and activity . We have thus presented a brief analysis of this review , which is itself a summary of Baron Labbey ' s own memoirs . No department of our public service has broken down [ moresignally and deplorably than our medical- department- ; -and the . writer of this most valuable review has no difficulty in explaining " the
reason why , " while he points the moral of his chapter in the Soldier-. Surgeo ? i as follows : — We venture to hope the moral of our-tale will liave been apparent throughout us course . Its application extends very much beyond the medical department , as its teaching is very much wider than the particular instance might seem to some to imply . In attempting to derive our lesson from facts in the life of a l ^ rench soldiersurgeon , we have no intention or desire to advocate the rash substitution of the French , or of any other foreign system for our own , in this or in any other public department . We believe that no more fatal error could be committed than to make any such change . Yet we see too much reason to fear that it is what will be done . Already a few spring waggons have been bought , and called voitures d ' ambulance , and it was set forth , that an efficient field-hospital train had been culled into existence ;
they proved , as any one might expect , to be worse than useless I What we desire to inculcate is the eternal truth , that in tho conduct of war no extent of material development can compensate for the lack of human intelligence , and that this will not work in chains . We should have as good a medical department , as good a commissariat , and as good an army as any in the world , if only wo wore to set tho intelligence they contain free to work , unrestricted by the inoupacity , and unchillcd by the discouragement of official chiefs . In no army , wo sincerely beliovo , would tho true soldier-surgeon be found in greater force than in our own , if only it wore shown that the high rewards of tho service are attainable by military-medical merit , and that the highest place could not bo so filled as to render its eminence a beacon of warning , not of encouragement , to aspirants who may bo disposed to base their hopes of advancement upon their self-consciousness of ability and knowledge .
There is a quaint and curious desultory paper in JBlackwoocl , on Beggars , reminding us a little ever and again of Sir Thomas Brown , of Dk QUiSciiv , and of Charles Lamb . The rest of the number is less interesting . The continuation of the Story of the Campaign will probably bo road first ; in a quiet , serious , and saddened manner , Major Hamlky describes the hospitals on the Bosphorus , in which bo many of our bravo follows have languished and in which that devoted ministering angel , Miss Nightingale , pursues day and night her holy offices of charity and comfort . The account of the burials in the . pits of Scutari is'most distressing . A " Pcop at Paris" is nn agreeable paper . Tho Census Returns suggest a somewhat vaguo but not ungoniul attack on our modern aolf-cducutional machinery , and on the comparative tables of religious denominations in tho United Kingdom , -which the writer concurs with certain bishops in con-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 3, 1855, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03031855/page/16/
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