El 
 
 " in ii i ii iii ! nil ii 
 
 *B 114 575 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
•:■:• 
 

 
 AN 
 
 - ::■ 
 
 EXPOSITION 
 
 UNJUST AND INJURIOUS RELATIONS 
 
 U.S. NAVAL MEDICAL CORPS, 
 
 V 
 
 A MEMBER 
 
 " There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 
 
 
 . 
 
 BALTIMORE: 
 PRINTED BY JOHN MURPHY, 
 
 146 MARKET STREET. 
 1842. 
 
 
 

/. 
 
 fir** 
 
 EXPOSITION, &c. 
 
 " There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 
 
 Since the entrance of the present head of the 
 Navy Department upon the duties of his office, he has 
 manifested such a knowledge of the various interests 
 and necessities of the service committed to his charge, 
 and such an energetic spirit of improvement and re- 
 formation, that to address him with a view to impart- 
 ing information, or stimulating his action, may have 
 the appearance of presumption; but his course has 
 so far inspirited the almost wasted hopes of the va- 
 rious branches of the service, that those who hereto- 
 fore have shut their eyes to error, from despair of its 
 correction, now feel encouraged to point it out, and 
 they confidently rely upon the courtesy which marks 
 his official intercourse with the members of the ser- 
 vice, to view their intentions graciously, although they 
 may be superfluous. 
 
 Although his comprehensive views of naval re-or- 
 ganization, may have been suggested by the general 
 wrong existing in the service, important and injurious 
 details may have escaped his observation ; indeed, it 
 
would be a matter of surprise, if they had not : for 
 error, too often, becomes sanctioned by time, as ruins 
 grow venerable beneath the moss, which, at once, con- 
 ceals and ornaments their rottenness. It is the pur- 
 port of this communication to strip the covering from 
 such errors and to call his attention to them: to 
 show that the medical corps of the U. S. Navy, is, by 
 the usages of the sea service, placed in a position, 
 inconsistent with the arrangements and intentions of 
 the government in relation to that corps, degrading 
 to the character of the profession to which it belongs ; 
 opposed to the true interests of the corps, and to the 
 interests of the service in general, so far, as those 
 interests depend upon the medical department. Each 
 one of these assertions will become manifest from an 
 examination of the real position and relations of 
 medical officers in service. 
 
 It would be an insult to the intelligence of any one, 
 to enter into an argument to show the high character 
 of the profession of medicine, both from its own nature 
 and from its relations with society. Its object, being 
 the good of mankind, there is no science, moral or 
 physical, which is not made tributary to it ; and there 
 is no human intellect so gigantic, but it will find full 
 scope and employment for all its powers in the pro- 
 fession of medicine : hence, its general claim to 
 respect and consideration. The duties of the medical 
 profession in the naval service, are, not only to reme- 
 dy the diseases and injuries to which the officers and 
 
men of that service are exposed, but to carefully 
 observe those influences, on the one hand, which pro- 
 duce disease, or on the other, preserve the health and 
 efficiency of a ship's company ; and also to mark the 
 effect of climate and habits upon diseases and the 
 human constitution, thus becoming valuable con- 
 tributors to the general stock of useful knowledge. 
 By the greater or less skill of the medical officer, 
 lives, valuable to the country, may be preserved or 
 destroyed ; an important action may be won or lost. 
 In the performance of their duties, as great an amount 
 of moral and physical courage is required as in any 
 other department of the service; in truth, greater, 
 for they are called upon to exercise skill and coolness 
 in the midst of danger, and without the excitement of 
 combat. Finally, medical officers are held strictly 
 accountable for all the requirements which a military 
 service exacts from its members, as officers and gen- 
 tlemen. Toward a body of men from whom such 
 duties are expected, and such a character required, it 
 is not only a narrow and illiberal policy, but great- 
 injustice, to pursue any course but such as accords it 
 a corresponding degree of respect. Pay is the lowest 
 reward of an officer of proper feeling, and is a secon- 
 dary consideration to those usages, which ought to 
 protect, if not add to, the respect due his station. In 
 our naval service, the pay of the medical officer is a 
 pittance, and the usages of the sea service rank him 
 with his predecessors of the days of Roderick Ran- 
 
6 
 
 dom. Our first position is, that those usages are 
 opposed to the intentions of the government. 
 
 In the selection of its medical officers, the laws of 
 the United States look to the highest degree of pro- 
 fessional capability, as a condition of their admission 
 into the first grade of the corps. Having obtained 
 his education at his own expense, and by what labor 
 and application it is unnecessary to state ; and being 
 twenty-one years of age, though many enter at a much 
 later period of life ; the applicant is submitted to the 
 scrutiny of a national board of medical officers, and so 
 rigid is the test, that only an average of one-fourth of 
 those examined, though generally graduates of our 
 most eminent medical schools, are found qualified. 
 It is evident that the government expects its young- 
 est medical officer to be fully qualified as a physician 
 and surgeon ; to have his mind maturely formed and 
 well cultivated; being properly satisfied of this, the 
 legislature and executive of his country fulfil the 
 promise made to his hopes, for although they do not 
 give him the pay of a respectable clerkship, the Pres- 
 ident and Senate confer upon him an honorable com- 
 mission, consistent with the character they have 
 required him to meet. But here all justice stops; he 
 has a commission in his pocket, it is true, but none in 
 fact ; caprice and usage are more powerful than his 
 country's will. His commission is never known 
 again while he is an assistant surgeon, perhaps, for 
 ten or twelve long years of his life. On ship- board 
 
the privileges of that commission are violated ; he is 
 at once, suddenly, thrust from the station to which his 
 profession, his age, the interests of the service, and 
 the intentions of the government entitle him. Simple 
 warrants given by the department, without the con- 
 currence of the senate, take precedence of him ; aye ! 
 even temporary appointments, made or destroyed by 
 the breath of the ship's captain, are, in all the usages 
 of sea life, superior to the rank of his commission. 
 
 Upon reporting himself on ship-board, the assistant 
 surgeon is assigned to the narrow limits of the steer- 
 age, crowded with boys about entering upon their 
 nautical education ; full of fun and frolic, and merry 
 with the noisy hilarity of youth. This is his home, 
 and these are his associates. If he is admitted into 
 the society of those more nearly his equals in years, 
 it is as a concession to which his rank, implied from 
 his apartment, does not entitle him. Upon descend- 
 ing to this apartment, perhaps, the first salutation that 
 he meets, is a laugh at his trunk of books. Where is 
 he to put them ? No trunks are allowed there, and 
 the only accommodation that he has, is a "stow-hole" 
 for his clothes. But it would be idle to make any 
 provision for professional studies, in a place so little 
 suited to their prosecution. The student who has 
 for years taught his mind to seek pleasure in the pur- 
 suit of knowledge, and strengthened it by converse 
 with those of the highest order ; regarding every day 
 as lost in which he does not add to his own ability to 
 
8 
 
 be useful, finds himself compelled to recede from the 
 station he had acquired, to return to his forgotten 
 juvenility, and either, to repress all social feeling, or, 
 to find its enjoyment by becoming again a boy. He 
 is also compelled to submit to all the minute regula- 
 tions established to restrain his more youthful asso- 
 ciates. Human nature finds it easier to yield to sur- 
 rounding circumstances, than, continually, to resist 
 them, and the foregoing relations are sufficient to 
 diminish the tone of thought and feeling of any mind. 
 But the medical officer is expected to make bricks 
 out of straw. Notwithstanding the adverse circum- 
 stances in which he is placed, and that such usages 
 debar him of the means of improvement, he is ex- 
 pected, daily, to increase in knowledge, and at the end 
 of five years, is submitted to another rigid examina- 
 tion to test his progress, and should he be again suc- 
 cessful, is rewarded by a very slight increase of pay ; 
 but his station is in no wise changed. His apartment 
 and his associations are still the same, save, that a 
 new and more juvenile set may take the place of 
 many of his former companions, who have now T grown 
 past him, and are occupying separate apartments in 
 the ward-room, with all the concomitant honors of 
 ward-room officers; some of them, as has been the 
 case, may be acting commanders, while yet he is the 
 humble steerage officer. During the years that he 
 passes in the rank of an assistant-surgeon, heretofore, 
 and most likely hereafter, seldom less than ten, there 
 
are constantly presented to him the following con- 
 trasts with his own situation. 
 
 The commander of a squadron has a young friend 
 who, before settling in life, wishes to see a little of 
 the world ; the commodore of his own free will 
 makes him his secretary for the cruise, and he passes 
 at once from civil life to the occupation and comforts 
 of his own state-room, and to the honors and asso- 
 ciations of the ward-room. All the other appoint- 
 ments from civil life, and which are made without 
 any test of qualification, are also admitted at once to 
 these superior honors and comforts ; the professor of 
 mathematics from his college or school room, the 
 chaplain from his desk, the purser from his counting 
 room, and a second lieutenant of marines from any 
 occupation in life, from the mechanic's bench to the 
 military academy. We do not adduce these as any 
 instances of impropriety, so far as the officers named 
 are concerned, but only to show the great wrong 
 done the assistant-surgeon, who enters the service as 
 a commissioned officer, to become permanently identi- 
 fied with it; with a professional education, tested by 
 rigid scrutiny, and who on the day that each of the 
 above named officers is first admitted, may have been 
 devoting his time and his talents to the service for 
 five, eight or ten years. 
 
 Not only do the superior advantages awarded these 
 commissioned, warranted, and temporarily appointed 
 officers over the assistant surgeons, give them greater 
 
10 
 
 comforts ; but, they are by consequence, entitled to 
 certain little ceremonies of honor which, shadowy 
 and unsubstantial though they be, by being withheld 
 from the medical officer, serve to mark the humility 
 of his position. When named, these ceremonies be- 
 come triflingly ridiculous, and to estimate them with 
 becoming gravity, it is necessary to consider, that 
 they make part and parcel of an isolated society, 
 made up of ceremonies as appeals to those who are 
 accustomed to regard symbols as substance;, and 
 when such trifles confer honor, they imply correspond- 
 ing degradation where they are withheld. The fol- 
 lowing are some of the observances alluded to : when 
 a ward-room officer passes out of, or into the ship, a 
 boatswain's mate attends the side and chirps him a 
 note of honor ; he approaches the ship on the star- 
 board side, that sacred to rank; descends to his 
 apartments by the after ', instead of the forward 
 hatchway; has the privilege of answering a proud 
 "aye, aye" to the sentry's hail, and is lighted over 
 the gangway by two lanterns. On the contrary, the 
 assistant-surgeon, after years of service, passes out of 
 or into the ship in silence and unhonored, must ap- 
 proach it on the larboard side, or be regarded as a 
 trespasser, and, to thejsentry's hail, answer an humble 
 "no, no ;" must puff his cigar on the larboard side in 
 company with his friends the middies, some of whom 
 are now but little older than his own children ; the 
 sacred starboard being tabooed to his humility ; and 
 
11 
 
 he must be careful to select the forward hatchway in 
 descending to his apartment. 
 
 As these rituals and petty distinctions are in inces- 
 sant action, and are insisted upon, the whole life on 
 shipboard is one of continued and systematic insult to 
 the medical officer. 
 
 So great is the sense of injustice done to this class 
 of officers, that in many instances it is attempted to 
 be done away with by those, who are called "sea 
 officers," particularly where these latter are of a lib- 
 eral and enlightened character, (and to the honor of 
 the service of the present day, the majority of them 
 are found to be such,) by inviting the assistant-surgeon 
 into the ward-room ; but it is an exceedingly unplea- 
 sant position for an officer, to receive as a concession 
 and indulgence, to be withdrawn at pleasure, what 
 by every principle of justice he has a right to claim *, 
 and moreover, this indulgence is contingent upon the 
 characters of the officers composing the ward-room 
 mess and upon the impression the medical officer may 
 make upon them. 
 
 At length, after years of habituation to such indig- 
 nities so as almost to lose sensibility to them, however 
 keenly he might have felt them at first, the assist- 
 ant is promoted to the rank of full surgeon, and enters 
 the ward-room. It is well for his feelings that the edu- 
 cation of humility he has passed through, has pre- 
 pared him for a patient endurance of its continuance. 
 Although the chief object of our remarks is not in 
 
12 
 
 reference to pay, still the great injustice with which 
 the medical officer is treated, as regards compensation, 
 requires a passing notice. Now that he is promoted to 
 a full surgeoncy, his pay is less than that of the young- 
 est lieutenant in service, and there are surgeons, who 
 have for years occupied the highest rank of their corps, 
 receiving less compensation than lieutenants, who, long 
 after the admission of these surgeons, entered the ser- 
 vice as youths, (of course, received their education in 
 it,) and are now not older in years than the medical 
 officers were at their original admission. It would seem 
 that to name such injustice would be to secure its 
 correction. 
 
 The surgeon has now become a w T ard-room officer, 
 and, excepting a trifling increase in his pay of two 
 hundred dollars, for every five years of service, his 
 position is stationary; and stationary, at the most 
 humble point; the respect he receives is dependent 
 entirely upon the character or the whim of his asso- 
 ciates : none is guaranteed him by regulation, and he 
 is generally compelled to yield precedence in all 
 points of etiquette to the youngest of his associates, 
 and even has his seat at the mess table assigned him 
 upon this estimate of his rank. Gradually, and by 
 the lapse of time, his brethren the "sea officers" pass 
 from the ward-room to the rank and honors of com- 
 manders, and to the occupation of their own cabins, 
 but the old surgeon, though grey hairs and an enfee- 
 bled body mark the length and fidelity of his service, 
 
13 
 
 finds no increase of comfort, the same position and 
 the same limited apartment which he entered on 
 the first day of his promotion, are all that he can 
 claim, on the last day of his service, and he passes 
 to his grave unhonored, save by the spontaneous 
 award of those who knew him. Such treatment and 
 such relations are assigned to the medical officers of 
 no other service in the world. In our own army, the 
 medical officers have a rank and comforts allotted them 
 fairly proportioned to the respectability of their pro- 
 fession, and the importance of their duties, and due 
 to the self-respect which, it should be the principle of 
 the government, to encourage in every officer : and 
 among their brother officers of the army, they hold 
 those social relations which cultivated minds always 
 acknowledge as the claim of their education and 
 profession. Surgeons in the army are assimilated to the 
 rank of major, and have choice of quarters after the 
 commanding officer of the post. The following is the 
 relation of their compensation with that of naval 
 officers of the same grade ; the highest and lowest 
 pay of each grade being taken. It will be observed 
 that assistant- surgeons in the army receive more pay 
 than a surgeon of ten years 1 standing in the navy, 
 although the naval surgeon may have been twenty 
 years a commissioned officer. 
 
 TABLE. 
 
 Army. Navy. 
 
 Surgeons of ten years' standing,. . . .$2519 83 to $2884 83 $1400 to $2172 
 
 « Under ten years, 1794 00 to 2227 83 1000 to 1572 
 
 Assistant Surgeons, 1083 00 to 2439 37 650 to 1272 
 
14 
 
 The British Government, ever vigilant of the inter- 
 ests of the navy in all its branches, fosters the medi- 
 cal department with care proportioned to that of 
 every other branch of the service. 
 
 By Her Majesty's Order in Council, issued in 1840, 
 which grants certain privileges to naval assistant- 
 surgeons in regard to pay, it is further ordered that, 
 "naval medical officers are to be henceforth placed, 
 in respect to rank, designation, pay, and retirement, 
 on a scale more nearly assimilated to that assigned 
 officers of the army medical department." 
 
 Having shown that the usages applied to naval 
 medical officers on ship-board are inconsistent with 
 the intentions of the government, so far as those in- 
 tentions can be known from its acts, injurious to the 
 interests of the corps, and to those of the service, and 
 inconsistent with the usages of corresponding ser- 
 vices; we propose further to show that they have no 
 foundation in utility, discipline, or subordination. 
 The object of all government regulations is, to se- 
 cure the greatest degree of efficiency of its agents, and 
 all officers are alike servants of the government, re- 
 sponsible to it and entitled to its protection; all are 
 alike important in their vocation, and efficiency being 
 provided for, and the interests of the country secured, 
 no regulations are necessary to add to the ascendancy 
 of one class by the degradation of another. Officers 
 are not the servants of officers ; and regulations are 
 necessary and required by subordination, to do away 
 
15 
 
 with such an idea, which has become too prevalent 
 from the use of the possessive pronoun my— as, for 
 instance, my ship — my officers, and my surgeon. If 
 officers are left thus at loose ends, with no limit to 
 subordination but individual will, and which will 
 may not discriminate between subordination to law 
 for its appropriate ends, and unbounded servility to 
 the individual, insubordination must result, or self- 
 respect be lost. It is as necessary to control the 
 uses of power for its legitimate purposes, as it is to 
 secure obedience from subordinates ; mutual aggres- 
 sion should be guarded against. No one class of 
 officers is to be supposed to feel a greater regard for 
 the interests of the country, or the good of the ser- 
 vice, than another; and this feeling of love of country 
 and "esprit du corps" should be allowed its full influ- 
 ence in securing the performance of its duties. The 
 most noble influences of action run the risk of de- 
 struction by such unnecessary regulations, as never 
 suppose the possibility of their existence. The 
 officer who would conscientiously and rigidly obey 
 the strictest exactions of law, and who would be 
 most worthy of his country's service, would be the 
 first to resist a servile and degrading personal 
 domination. "I'll break you, sir," may be, as it often 
 is, the threat and the result, and it is cruel that the 
 country should leave any of its officers to an un- 
 aided contest between his bread and his honor ; but 
 there will always be some found, ready to sacrifice 
 

 16 
 
 their commissions to the preservation of their self- 
 respect, and the only way to guard against such in- 
 subordination is for the country, by proper regulation, 
 to prevent its necessity. In a military service, a tame 
 and cringingly servile character is as destructive of 
 the force and energy of such a service, as is insubor- 
 dination, and one or the other must result, unless 
 subordinates are protected in all consistent rights 
 and privileges. An eloquent writer remarks upon 
 one of the most brilliant courts of Europe, " There 
 was combined with all the external grace and noble- 
 ness, a frequent meanness of sentiment, a cringing 
 servility, and calculating self-seeking, among many of 
 the most dazzling courtiers ; attributes and qualities 
 from which, perhaps, the regions of no despotism, 
 however polished, are exempt." We need have no 
 such results in our navy, for no such irresponsible 
 despotism is necessary to the good of the service, or 
 to discipline and subordination. Discipline and sub- 
 ordination, are the talismanic words, which have lent 
 the sanction of their names to oppression and insult, 
 as the cross has been held aloft to call for approba- 
 tion upon murder and rapine. 
 
 The foregoing principles being true, how unneces- 
 sary, how injurious, is the humble and unprotected 
 position of the medical corps! Its duties being 
 entirely out of the line of military routine, never 
 commanding, save within itself, and necessarily ac- 
 knowledging the superiority, upon duty, of the repre- 
 
17 
 
 sentative of the law, be he the youngest midshipman 
 or the oldest commodore, no honors or rank conferred 
 upon that corps could militate with discipline ; and 
 the government having, by law, secured the qualifica- 
 tions of the medical officer, guaranteed his proper 
 attendance, and conferred power sufficient upon the 
 commander, to execute the law in relation to that 
 attendance, should protect him from vexatious an- 
 noyances, and, by proper regulation and liberal pro- 
 visions and honors, sustain the respectability of the 
 corps, to which he belongs ansUrender the performance 
 of his duties a matter of pride, instead of humiliation. 
 It should be a corps, into which, the best professional 
 talents of the country should have inducements to 
 enter, for those, who endure the privations and en- 
 counter the dangers of the naval service, should have 
 the most competent agents allowed them, for the mit- 
 igation of the suffering of disease and injury, and the 
 preservation of their lives and health. Hence, it is 
 not only the duty of the government, but it is the 
 personal interest of every officer in the service to lend 
 his influence, to give character and standing to the 
 medical corps. 
 
 The natural position of the medical corps, and the 
 improbability of its coming in collision with the dis- 
 cipline of the ship, is shown from the fact, that those 
 commanders, who are most distinguished for intelli- 
 gence, mental cultivation and liberal views, have no 
 difficulties with their medical officers, for such com- 
 3 
 
IS 
 
 manders award to these officers, spontaneously, their 
 proper position, a full confidence in their sense of 
 professional responsibility, and find, that they can 
 seek their familiar companionship without any inter- 
 ruption of military subordination. But as men glide 
 into the rank of commander, by the lapse of time, 
 independently of ability or merit, it is not strange 
 that some are found of views so narrow and illiberal 
 as to feel jealous of all who breathe without their 
 permission, and think themselves insulted, if thought 
 is exercised without th^sanction of their will. Such 
 men by a continual and vexatious interference with 
 the duties of the medical officer, or a cruel annoy- 
 ance to the sick committed to his charge, give rise to 
 difficulties ; and of such a character is almost every 
 difficulty in which a medical officer has been con- 
 cerned. We never hear of such collisions in the 
 army. In a contest with such men, in the navy, the 
 case is carried before a partial tribunal, one of com- 
 manders, and the result may generally be anticipated, 
 previous to the trial. Not, that we mean to assert, 
 that they would, deliberately, render a verdict con- 
 trary to their consciences and oaths, but no man is 
 superior to the weaknesses of human nature, and in- 
 voluntarily, unconsciously to themselves, they arrive at 
 the conclusion, that their own rule of safety, is that 
 of irresponsibility; each one feels, that he may be 
 brought into a similar collision, and a decision, always 
 on the side of power, diminishes the danger of his 
 
19 
 
 being held responsible for its improper exercise. 
 Justice has ever been found a small mouthful in the 
 way of a voracious self-interest. It is unnecessary, at 
 this time, to say more upon a wrong to which facts 
 are opening the eyes of all men. 
 
 It is in the power of the Department, to do much, 
 to place the naval medical service upon a proper 
 footing, the rest depends upon the justice of the na- 
 tional legislature. To the head of the Department 
 and to the legislature of their country, the subordi- 
 nate branches of the service look for care and pro- 
 tection : they have no other dependance for the 
 preservation of their rights or a correction of their 
 wrongs. 
 
 One of the first steps of improvement is to assign 
 the assistant surgeons a position, consistent with their 
 character, their age, and their profession — another, 
 and an important one, w T ould be to define, as has 
 been done in the British service, the rank and privi- 
 leges of the medical corps in general ; to make them 
 proportioned to the important duties and high re- 
 sponsibilities of its station, and corresponding to that 
 occupied in other military services. It is not only 
 due, but necessary to those, who are part of a military 
 system, and held amenable to all the requirements 
 and etiquette of that system, that they have their 
 own position defined and guarded by corresponding 
 symbols and honors. In the third place, medical offi- 
 cers should compose, at least a part, of military courts, 
 
20 
 
 before which a medical officer is brought for trial. 
 This is right, in obedience to the just principle, that a 
 man shall be tried by his peers. They are compe- 
 tent by law; there is precedent for their appoint- 
 ment ; and no one will say, they are not as capable as 
 others, from their intelligence and integrity, of render- 
 ing an enlightened and righteous verdict. 
 
 It is no argument, in favor of the continuance of the 
 marked wrongs, or the humiliating official relations of 
 the medical corps, that its members have won for 
 themselves a character of honor and respectability ; 
 on the contrary, it is an additional evidence of 
 their claim to their country's support and protection. 
 This general reputation, so far as the corps may pos- 
 sess it, has been won, by individual force of character, 
 in opposition to adverse regulations, and unaided by 
 the support and protection, which they w T ere entitled 
 to receive from their country. But the history of the 
 success of the medical corps, is not its whole history ; 
 there is a counter narration, unrecorded and undi- 
 vulged. Who takes note of those, whose talents 
 would have been an honor and benefit to the coun- 
 try's service, but, who, from familiarity with its injus- 
 tice, shrink from its employ? We can adduce, at 
 least one eminent professor, who carefully guards his 
 students from the navy, as the mselstrom of talents, 
 fame and fortune. Of those in the service, how many 
 are there, who finding themselves in a false position, 
 remain as a matter of bitter expediency, awaiting 
 
21 
 
 the first favorable moment, to quit a service, which 
 neither rewards their labors, nor respects their pro- 
 fession ? How many, who gradually lose the spirit 
 of professional pride, whose impulse was onward, 
 and philosophically, though naturally, fall into the 
 same estimate of their profession, as is taken by the 
 usages of the service, and learn to regard it with too 
 much contempt, to make any effort for its advance- 
 ment. Although, some by force of character, or fa- 
 voring circumstances, or both, have established a 
 reputation of honor for themselves and for the service 
 of which they are members, is it worthy of the gene- 
 rosity, the dignity, or the justice of their country that 
 this has been accomplished in struggling opposition 
 to every official impediment 7 
 
 Opposition or neglect may retard the advance of 
 the naval medical corps to its proper position, but 
 sooner or later, despite of opposition or neglect, that 
 position it must reach. Principles of a permanent 
 character may be covered up, by temporary circum- 
 stances, but eventually will rise superior to them, and 
 the present relations of the medical corps, in the navy, 
 are so contrary to its own nature, to its relations with 
 society in general, to the interests of the service, and 
 to the common sense of the people, that those rela- 
 tions cannot endure. "History is philosophy teaching 
 by example," and the history of what has been done 
 in other services, and in the services, too, of those 
 countries, whose conventional arrangements exclude 
 
22 
 
 the profession of medicine, from the relations with gene- 
 ral society, which it holds in ours, teach us, in the most 
 forcible manner, that an end must come to the present 
 false and unnatural arrangements. By using the 
 powers intrusted to them, to hasten the arrival of that 
 period, the legislative and executive departments will 
 be putting an end to long continued and gross injus- 
 tice, and while restoring an important class of public 
 agents to their natural relations and position, they will 
 be, at the same time, increasing the efficiency of those 
 agents, advancing the objects of their creation, and 
 rendering them doubly valuable to the country's ser- 
 vice and their country's good. In this case, justice 
 is harmoniously invited onward by the public weal, 
 and need not push its way under the sanction of that 
 principle whose mandate is, 
 
 "Fiat Justitia, ruat ccelum." 
 
■■■•.. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 tNlar'SOBZ 
 l0 Jurt50R» 
 
 LD 21-100m-ll,'49(B7146sl6)476 
 
Stockton, Calif. 
 W. )AN. 2\, 1908 
 
 965191 
 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY