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The Magazines have not gone out with the coaches , but we no longer look forMAGAandFBASKB 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 ; in 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 hast ily written than the original fragments of which it is made up . We doubt if it would be possible to find , more negligent writing , more flippant presumption of tone in any newspaper struck off at red heat than in 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 and dulland thing
other . As it is , they are often equally superficial , no 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 Labrey . " " These sentiments Napoleon vouched in his last will by a bequest of 100 , 000 francs
to Ijabbet . * L'homme le plus vertueux quefdie jamais connu . 'J" ¦ -. Baron- Labrey first entered the public service " as a medical officer 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 Luckneb at Strasburg , on the 1 st of April , 1792 , and was sOon after placed in surgical charge of Kelmbman ' s division . " At the assault of Spires by General Custine , " Xabrey 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 army at the heights of the Alma . " '
We are still suffering 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 Larrey fully organised " a rudimentary field-hospital , or ambulance volatile ? and he tells us it " made a great sensation among the soldiers , " who 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-majqp commanding , two assistant-surgeon-majors , twelve sub-assistant surgeon-majors ( two of whom acted as apothecaries ) , a lieutenantprovidoro of the division , a sub-lieutenant , a mare ' chal 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 fourriers , three corporals , a drummer ( garoon d ' appareils de chirurgie ) , twenty-five infantry hospital men . To each division were 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 trumpeter and twenty drivers . It will bo seen tiat 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 the officers were furnished with the most necessary surgical appliances ; and the men , mounted and dismounted , carried knapsacks containing reserve supplies of surgical munitions . The legion was under the orders of the
surgeon-in-chief of the army ; its administration was conducted by a board composed of the medical and administrative officers of the three divisions ; and its discipline and manoeuvres were regulated by a special code of instructions . Its duty was to take up the wounded from the field , after having given them immediate surgical assistance , and to ' carry them to the hospitals of the first lino . Tho sub-lieutenants of the ambulance and the infantry hospital men were also charged with the duty of burying the dead ; and the former were authorised to require such levies of the inhabitants as might be necessary for that purpose . The carriages were two-wheeled or four-wheeled , and by their form and weight they were adapted to varieties of country . They could follow the most rapid movements of tho advanced guard , and divide when requisite ; bo that a single medical officer , with an orderly carrying all necessaries , and attended trv a carriage , could repair to any spot where assistance was required . There can be no doubt that this field-hospital train conferred the most essential benefits upon the army Into which it was introduced ; but it would be a very grave mistake to attempt the introduction of a servile copy of it into our 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 Ihe direction of the ambulance , Larrey , having hastened the amputation of a leg with which he was engaged " expressed , with force , his resolution not to abandon his post ; and all his juniors rallying around him , swore they would never quit him . In this difficult coniuncture " he continues , " Mr . Pelchet , qfficier 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 pr ice—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 Erance . We , too , should soon find the wants of our army m all department amplv supplied , could we but take heart to cast loose the bonds of official routine , and to set the energy , talents , and love of distinction of our men and officers free to work in their natural channels .
Labbey served throughout the campaign on the ; m ne was " 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 Figueras , and during the siege of Rosas—" a sort of prototype of Sebastopol'Wn the winter of 1794-95 ; returned to Paris to conduct a school of surgery ; repaired to Italy to " make a tour of inspection throughout the stations of the army , organising general and fieldht for the
hospitals , and taking all the measures he thougexpedient improvement of the service ; formin g " 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 Saxonjy of Prussia , and of Poland ; in the campaigns of Spain in 1808-9 , and in that of Austria ; " again in Spain and in Bavaria . " On the 12 th of February , T 812 , he was - appointed surgeon-in-chief of the grand
^ . rrny ; " worked through ail the horrors of Smolensko , the Moskowa , Borodino , and the retreat from Moscow , served through the campaigns , of 1813 _ -14 , and was present atr the great battles in Saxony and _ . Tetfeat from Leipzig ; " took part in the operations in France , bade a first farewell to Napoleon 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 i n honour and . activity . " We have thus presented a brief analysis of this review , which is itself a summary of Baron Labrey ' s own memoirs . No department of our public service has broken down more signally and deplorably than ^> ur medical department ; ari d 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-Surgeon as follows : —
We venture to hope the moral of our tale will have 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 French 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 bo 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 voilures d ambulance , and it was set forth , that an efficient field-hospital train had been called into existence ; they proved , as any one might expect , to bo worse than useless ! What wo desire to inculcate is the eternal truth , that in the 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 tho incapacity , and unchilled by the discouragement of official chiefs . In no army , we sincerely believe , would tho true 3 oldier-surgeon bo found in greater force than in our own , if only it were shown that the high rewards of tho service are attainable by military-medicnl merit , and that tho highest place could not bo so filled as to render its eminence a beacon of warniny , not sf encouragement , to aspirants who may be disposed to base their hopes of advancement upon their self-consciousness of ability nnd knowledge .
There is a quaint and curious desultory paper in Blackwood , on Beggars , reminding us a little ever and again of Sir Thomas Brown , of Du Quncey , 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 Hamltcy describes the hospitals on the Bosphorus , in which so many of our bravo follows have languished and in which that devoted ministering angel , Miss Nightingai . k , pursues day and night her holy offices of charity and comfort . The account of the burials in tho pits of Scutari is most distressing .
A " Peep at Paris" is an agreeable paper . Tho Census Returns suggest a somewhat vague but not ungenial attack on our modern self-educational 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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Critics are not the legislator ^ but the judges and police ^ erattire - They do not make laws-they interpret and Iry to enforce them . —Edinburgh Bevzeio .
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208 THE LEADBB . [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), March 3, 1855, page 208, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2080/page/16/
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