Medic

“ The army doctors are henceforth to go through the ordinary medical and surgical education first, and then to have an additional training to fit them to manage the diseases which most afflict armies, and the hurts which are received in battle. ”

“ We salute the Nation's emergency medical services personnel: those who staff the ambulances, those who provide medical control, and those physicians and nurses in the trauma centers whose daily efforts are devoted to emergency medicine. We all depend upon their skills and dedication. ”

“ From the days when the first duty of the so-called army surgeon was to minister to his commanding general, and when the private soldier received but the scantiest if any attention, we have arrived at that time when the good health of the entire army is the aim and pride of the medical corps, and when public opinion demands for every enlisted man a degree of watchful care greater than many parents bestow upon their own families. ”

“ Every day a fresh surgeon or physician arrived to bind up legs and arms and heads, or revive the ladies from extreme prostration, pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, heart-complaint, etc., till every medical man in Plymouth, Stonehouse and Devonport had been to the house of the spinsters. ”

“ Major operations comparable to those in any other institution are performed, and there is no limitation whatever, either medical or surgical, to the functions which the staff of the hospital undertakes. ”

“ In other words, there should be for such an army at least 1,000 medical officers in the regular service, and also at least 3,000 volunteer surgeons, professionally and physically equipped for such work. ”

“ It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing; medicine is the surgery of functions, as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs. Neither can do anything but remove obstructions; neither can cure; nature alone cures. Surgery removes the bullet out of the limb, which is an obstruction to cure, but nature heals the wound. So it is with medicine; the function of an organ becomes obstructed; medicine, so far as we know, assists nature to remove the obstruction, but does nothing more. ”

“ The inner hatch now opened and Dane waved his captive into the small section which must serve them as a decontamination space. Free at last of the suits, they went through one more improvised hatch to the main corridor of the Queen where Rip and Ali stood waiting, their weary faces lighting as they saw the Medic.
It was the latter who spoke first. "This is a plague ship—"
Rip shook his head. "It is not, sir. And you're the one who is going to help us prove that."
The man leaned back against the wall, his face expressionless. "You take a rather tough way of trying to get help." ”

“ In addition to those we treat medically, we perform all the most difficult surgical operations known to the most eminent Surgeons, and so frequently do many of these operations occur with us that some of our Specialists have become the most expert and skillful Surgeons on this continent. ”

“ For it is not only medical and surgical nursing that is learnt in a hospital ward, it is discipline, endurance, making the best of adverse circumstances, and above all the knowledge of mankind. These are the qualities that are needed at the front, and they cannot be imparted in a few bandaging classes or instructions in First Aid. ”

“ The Nurses are to give due Attendance to their Patients; and to keep them always as neat and clean, as the Nature of their Distempers will admit of; to give them their Diet regularly; to be particularly careful to see them take the Medicines ordered by the Physicians, [385] according to the Directions given; to report to the Physician, Surgeon, or Apothecary, any Faults or Irregularities which any of their Patients may have committed ”

“ A Physician will reside in the house, and one or more Physicians, of established character and experience, will attend regularly, and afford medical aid in all cases where the general health, or the particular cause of the patient's insanity, may require it. ”

“ Our Medical Corps is especially entitled to praise for the general effectiveness of its work both in hospital and at the front. Embracing men of high professional attainments, and splendid women devoted to their calling and untiring in their efforts, this department has made a new record for medical and sanitary proficiency. ”

“ Their confidence seems to come with the increase in the number of their medical attendants; and when the chief surgeon, with his dozen of satellites, supported by several capable-looking nurses, has ordered them to take a decoction that works in their systems as if scorpions and tarantella spiders were careering through their veins, they submit with meekest resignation, and admire the regularity with which their doses are timed. You can do things in hospital it would be as much as your life were worth to attempt outside. ”

“ However, I have been ordered—on medical advice—not to talk about patients, but doctors. Speaking then, as a patient, I should say that the average patient looks upon the average{24} doctor very much as the non-combatant looks upon the troops fighting on his behalf. The more trained men there are between his dearly beloved body and the enemy, he thinks, the better. ”

“ From the medical point of view the perfection of the system offers illimitable opportunities. In the hospital, where a patient may be lying in a critical condition, the surgeon can have a continuous record of the state of his pulse without its being felt by hand at intervals. ”

“ Two Paris friends, Mlle Block and Miss Grey, gave the hospital very real assistance by providing two ambulances and placing them at the disposal of the medical staff. They were both of them splendid drivers, and they did many a hard day’s work, and thought no pains too great, no journey too long, that gave some wounded man a chance of recovery. ”

“ The governors of the hospital never had a medical officer more desirous of efficiently performing his duties; and he shewed the interest he took in the advancement of the pupils, by immediately instituting clinical lectures; thus adding to his own labours, at a period when his time was daily becoming more valuable to him. His patience in investigating a disease was only exceeded by his perspicacity in detecting it, and his anxiety to cure it. ”

“ When the examination in these subjects has been satisfactorily negotiated, she passes on to medical work proper, the study of disease and the result of accident in the living person—in other words, she walks the wards of the hospital and undertakes duties as clerk to physicians and dresser to surgeons, from whom she receives instruction in medicine, surgery, and pathology. Special branches are also studied, such as midwifery, women's diseases, and affections of the throat, ear, eye, and skin. The treatment of minor accidents also receives special attention. ”

“ Nevertheless, and despite the handicap of limited space and facilities, the Museum was, as The Surgeon General described it in his 1920 report, a very valuable connecting link between the Medical Department of the United States Army and the general medical profession of the United States, from the stand-point of scientific medicine and surgery. ”

“ Among the most successful and valuable of the films produced by the forces of the Instruction Laboratory at the camps, and with the aid of the Medical Department, was "Training the Medical Officer," directed at the thousands of new medical officers taken from civilian life and passing through the medical officers training courses. ”

“ And though the brunt of this task is borne and must be borne by the shoulders of medical men, physicians assume the burden cheerfully, now that they know that they can count upon the intelligent support and the cordial sympathy of an ever-enlarging extra-medical aggregate. ”

“ Later, in the medical wards, the Major made his rounds, to inspect more carefully the men upon whom he had made snap diagnoses, to correct the diagnosis, if need be, and to order treatment. The chief treatment they needed was a bath, a clean bed, and a week of sleep, but the doctor, being fairly conscientious, thought to hurry things- 134 - a little, to hasten the return of these old, tired men to the trenches, so that they might come back to the hospital again as grands blessés. ”

“ Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession. ”

“ This corps is in charge of a chief surgeon and chief medical examiner, both prominent in their professions; and although the number of men in their charge exceeds forty thousand, any complicated or persistent disability of an employee secures the personal supervision of the chief surgeon. ”

“ Still, let me repeat, neither in Celsus nor in Paulus Ægineta, nor, indeed, in any other ancient medical work, have we, as far as I know, any allusion to the circumstance of surgeons or physicians 209being regularly appointed as army medical officers in the Roman army, for the purpose of superintending the treatment of the wounded, or—what is of still greater importance—in order to take professional care of the soldiers disabled by sickness and disease, and whose number in warfare is generally very much greater than the number of those that are disabled in fight. ”

“ I use the word nursing for want of a better. It has been limited to signify little more than the administration of medicines and the application of poultices. It ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet—all at the least expense of vital power to the patient. ”

“ Nursing is so fascinating in itself that many Commandants were drawn from their proper sphere of administration into surgical and medical work. My wife, partly from an instinct for sound administration, and partly also because at the moment she lacked the physical strength, confined herself strictly to her own side. In a hospital in which the patients were continually changing, which was four miles from a town and two miles from a railway station, that side was in war-times and during the period of rationing, by no means a light job. ”

“ NURSE. A person, generally a female, whose whole business is to attend the sick in the general or regimental hospital. She is under the immediate direction of the surgeon, whose duty will be to prepare the slops and comforts for the sick, and occasionally to assist in administering medicines, cooking the victuals, washing, &c. and for every ten men confined to bed by fever, an additional nurse and orderly-man should be allowed. ”

“ Such knowledge of medicine and surgery as is possessed by the medical profession generally will not alone suffice to make an efficient military surgeon. He must have, in addition, knowledge of the administration and sanitation of large field hospitals and camps, in order to safeguard the health and lives of men intrusted in great numbers to his care. ”

“ The British army is plentifully supplied with these medical officers. For the army of 118,000 men there were provided one thousand and seventy-five medical officers under full pay in 1859. Four hundred and seventy surgeons and assistant-surgeons were attached to the hundred regiments of infantry. [80]
It is made the duty of the medical officer to keep constant watch over all the means and habits of life among the troops,—"to see that all regulations for protecting the health of troops, in barracks, garrisons, stations, or camps, are duly observed." ”

“ The training consists of lectures by the medical staff and superintendent, on anatomy, physiology, hygiene, and the general principles of nursing, the observation and recording of symptoms, the diet of the sick, and the best methods of managing helpless patients. Instruction is given in the wards on the dressing of wounds, the application of blisters, fomentations, poultices, cups and leeches ”

“ The army medical officer found new problems facing him at every fresh development of the conflict, and to fit him for grappling with these new phases of human needs the Medical Department of the Army established numberless schools and courses of study at medical institutions, at hospitals and wherever could be brought together the factors necessary for this specialized and intensive training. ”

“ He was promoted to the position of brigade surgeon in 1862 and medical inspector of the United States Army in 1863. His army medical experience was very large, as he attended the wounded on almost every extensive battlefield during the war and during a campaign in which he was the chief surgeon under Gen. ”

“ The fourth member of the military staff is the Surgeon, who with his four assistants, medical officers of the Army, watch over the health of the command. Under his charge is the hospital for cadets, and that for enlisted men.
The Surgeon has authority to excuse an officer or cadet from any duty whatsoever on account of illness. In the eyes of the cadets he stands as the guardian of the Gates of Paradise. When the body is fatigued, or one’s head is choked up and eyes running from a bad cold, illnesses that in reality do not incapacitate one for duty, to have a nice sympathetic Dr. ”

“ The treatment of every case of sickness must be determined ultimately for and by itself, tentatively by skilled men, and as their practical sagacity may determine, while they bear in mind that the virtues of a medicine depend less upon its intrinsic properties and powers than on the sagacity of the physician who administers it; just as the efficiency of firearms depends less upon the explosives and the missile they contain than on the judgment and accuracy of aim of the man who discharges them. ”