places. There was no washing, but a great deal of cursing and swearing be tween the sick and orderlies-a sufficient index that all was confusion. Dr Hall was in command. As to coffee, the French roasted it, but received it as we did, quite green. They established a single place for roasting their coffee all at once, and then distributed it to their men fit for use.

Mr Stafford was asked several questions as to the value of peat charcoal as a disinfectant, and whether he thought, if used in the hospitals, it might not prove salutary as a deodoriser, but he seemed to have had no experience whatever of hospitals, except those he visited at Constantinople, which were the first he was tempted to enter. A certain Admiral Boxer, "a seaman of the old school," had all the arrangements under him, as to sending boats for the sick, and something similar was evident in the old-fashioned routine on shore. The men arrived perfectly exhausted, whatever other medical name it might get. Things at Scutari were in a state of utter confusion-the beds not numbered; no registers of patients. Once Lady Stratford brought a saucepan of chicken broth-not a cauldron, as some said. The men got baths also; they had bedsores to a terrible extent; the nurses brought them arrowroot and wine. There was a great want of pillows and shirts of every description. The witness was asked to state his personal experience of what he saw and did, and went over all this again; he was then inadvertently blamed by another member of the Committee, for saying so much about himself; he then admitted that the surgeons and official people were all just as busy as himself; but the "flood of sick was so frightful and sudden, they were all confused. Fifty soldiers' wives were crammed into one small room in the Barrack Hospital, in a most shocking state.

Captain Percy (a private friend of Mr Sidney Herbert) who went out in charge of forty-seven nurses, was next examined, but his evidence was of no particular moment, as he had known nothing previously of hospitals. He noticed two very objectionable things-that the dead-house opened into one of the corridors, and bodies were exposed; and that the orderlies slept amongst the sick, exposed to contagion. He had heard that the hospital was left in a very bad state by the troops, on their way up to Varna. 10,000 iron bedsteads were lost!

Dr Andrew Smith, whose evidence was extended over two days, said he entered the military service in 1815. He had served in the 98th, 49th, and other regiments. Prior to his appointment as Director-General he was staffsurgeon of the first class. His superiors at present were the Commander-inChief, the Minister of War, and the Board of Ordnance; from each he received separate and independent directions (as he expressed it in another part of his evidence, the Medical Department lived as a "parasite" on three or four others). It was his duty to propose all medical appointments in the army. He had the general superintendence of all the garrison hospitals in the kingdom-Fort Pitt (Chatham), another at Dublin, Cork, etc. All medical stores were supplied on requisition to him in the first place. As to stores of clothing and medical comforts, formerly (1830) a purveyor-in-chief purchased everything; but since then that duty had devolved on the Ordnance Department. There was, in fact, now much confusion; the War Minister claimed an authority more properly belonging to the Medical Department; there was perpetual conflict of opinion and authority. As to the present expeditionary army at Sebastopol, he was first apprised of it in February last year. He was told by the Commander-in-Chief to provide necessaries of a medical kind for an army of observation, 10,000 men to proceed to Malta; an additional assistant-surgeon was accordingly appointed to each regiment; the staff was also increased. Hospital furniture, medical comforts, etc., were prepared in eight days; the bedding was supplied by the Ordnance. When asked if he saw these articles were duly provided and shipped, he said he had no authority to do so, but persons from his office were despatched daily to ascertain the progress made, but he had not the slightest power over the Ordnance or Commissariat; they

did as they pleased with the medicines. In March (the succeeding month) he had an intimation that an additional force of 25,000 men would be despatched to Turkey, when he took the same steps. As regarded the nature of the climate and local diseases of Turkey, Dr Smith represented to the Commander-in-Chief the necessity of sending out a corps of medical observation, the senior medical officers destined to accompany the army overland, together with a military engineer. The medical officers went accordingly, but no engineer officers. These medical officers reported as to the hygienic and sanitary conditions of the country beforehand, and the instructions were issued, founded on these reports. With regard to the establishment of army hospitals, Dr Smith said he trusted to the medical officers themselves; he did not consider it right to interfere beyond giving advice and suggestions; things were better managed when confided to the discretion of those on the spot, guided by the emergencies of the locality. The medical stores were knocking about from port to port, in place of being delivered at Scutari, but he had no possible control over such matters. He did not think it advisable to trust to the precarious drug-market of Constantinople, so all were sent together. As to purchasing articles on the spot, the purveyor had full power to purchase articles, if necessary; and from what appeared in the public press, there could not have been much difficulty in his doing so. Dr Smith had no authority to interfere in the improvement of the hospitals at Scutari; sufficient power was vested in the ambassador. Since the war broke out," Dr Smith said he had been labouring day and night (fourteen hours every day). Some fault was found with Dr Lawson, but Lord Raglan's good nature was inclined to forgive him. Dr Smith thought the reports in the public press as to Scutari were very much exaggerated. All the mismanagement arose from the medical stores being left at Varna, and afterwards in the Crimea, everything depending on the Commissariat. Medical officers had some timidity in dealing with the purveyor, and much evil arose from this-not from carelessness about the soldiers. Dr Hall was the head of the entire medical arrangements; and sufficient supplies were despatched to the Crimea when the flank march was known. In answer to a question as to whether Dr Smith believed he had a sufficient staff of surgeons at the commencement of the war, he said he had not, and found the most unexpected and extraordinary difficulties in procuring surgeons. He could manage his office in half the time and with half the work, if he had not so many authorities interfering with the medical department. When he read the accounts in the daily press, he not only wrote to his surgeons and Dr Hall, but sent him the extracts. They were all over-coloured.

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HOSPITAL SYSTEM IN THE EAST.-The Times ascribes the hospital disasters to Dr Smith and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. It states that "It is difficult to dwell without most exasperated feelings on the conduct of men through whose cruel apathy so large a portion of our noble army has passed from the field to the hospital, and from the hospital to the grave. The bitterness of these feelings is increased by the reflection that the men who have done these things -the head of the medical department at home, and the ambassador to whom, in an evil hour, the express instructions of our ministers intrusted the care of our mutilated and suffering countrymen abroad-still retain their places uncensured and unquestioned. Against both these functionaries the case seems entirely perfect. To Dr Andrew Smith we must ascribe, in addition to his notorious personal incompetency for the highest place in such a department, the reign of terror among the medical officers which rendered them unwilling to accept assistance, hostile to all sympathisers, and ready, at the cost of thousands of lives, to conceal the faults of the department. Of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe truth compels us to speak in yet more severe terms of reprobation; placed in a most elevated station, intrusted with a boundless command of money for this special purpose, and having before him an inexhaustible field

Dr Beddoe briefly seconded this resolution, remarking that a very little pressure from without would probably compel the Admiralty to do justice in this matter; that the present juncture was peculiarly favourable for the movement, and that it behoved its supporters to speak now, or ever after hold their peace. Carried unanimously.

Mr D. B. Smith then brought forward the following resolution :-" That, in the opinion of this meeting, it would be greatly to be lamented if the students of Edinburgh should in any way favour the continuance of this abuse." He said he had only to look to the number of resignations by assistant-surgeons from the navy, to be convinced that, not one individual alone, but that many simultaneously, had felt that there was something egregiously and painfully at fault in the professional hygiene of that service, the result of which now was a want of the full complement of professional men in the navy. He reminded his fellow-students that they were bound, in justice to themselves, to the school in which they study, and to the public service, to arrive at no conclusions before having heard and duly considered all the bearings of this weighty matter. He judged the present temporary liberality at headquarters to be a pseudoliberality, and one altogether misapplied. He would fain see, in lieu of it, the system, as a whole, entirely overhauled and amended. Was there really a want of assistant-surgeons? There would be found to be none if parsimony were only set aside, and a due recognition shown of the value of a surgeon, wherever he may serve. Mr Smith concluded by saying that the voice of the students of Middlesex and St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, the voice of the press, and the voice of the public, all united in calling loudly for reform in the regulations affecting the surgeon and assistant-surgeon in the navy. Mr Lowe seconded the resolution, which was also carried.

Dr Broadbent moved-" That the acceptance of the appointments proposed to students by the Admiralty must tend to postpone reform, by providing substi tutes for the want of qualified men, which has been produced by the evils of the present system." În proposing this resolution, Dr Broadbent dwelt principally on the certainty that gentlemen appointed to act as dressers would really be employed as assistant-surgeons, and he expressed his conviction that numbers of duly qualified men would willingly enter the service at such a juncture as this, if the Admiralty would but accede to their just and moderate demands.

Dr Kirk briefly seconded the resolution, and remarked that those who might now enter the navy as dressers, would have themselves to blame if, two or three years hence, when legally qualified, they found that service partially closed against them by the continuance of the present abuses.

Dr Nicolson, H.E.I.C.S., warned such students as had entertained any idea of accepting the proposals, that if they acted on that idea they would find themselves in a very equivocal and unpleasant position. The functions of dresser to the navy, properly so called, would probably be better left to such men as were employed in that capacity in the Indian navy. These were not gentlemen, but intelligent persons of a lower class, educated specially for the purpose, and competent to do the rough work under the direction of an assistant-surgeon.

This resolution being put from the chair, was carried unanimously.

Mr Leister proposed the fifth resolution :-"That this meeting, therefore, strongly deprecates this proposal, and earnestly calls upon the students of Edinburgh to sacrifice, on public grounds, any private advantages which it may seem to offer." He had peculiar satisfaction in proposing this resolution, because while its adoption might be thought to imply a sacrifice on the part of the students of Edinburgh of their own interests for the sake of the profession generally, yet he had no doubt it would be carried as unanimously as those which had gone before it. He had been told that public-spirited benevolence was not to be expected of medical students; that the pecuniary remuneration or personal professional advantage of any offer made to them would alone be

so.

considered he did not believe this; he thought that if a man was to be philanthropic in after life he would show evidence of this virtue during his studentship. And he believed that if the students of Edinburgh saw clearly that the acceptance of any offer made to them would have a most prejudicial influence on the medical profession at large, as well as on an important branch of the public service, they would think twice before embracing such an offer, however tempting. But, indeed, he was far from thinking that this one was The pay for the six months, including a bonus of L.25 to be given at the end of that time, would be nearly L.80; but this sum would be much encroached on by the reductions mentioned in the Admiralty regulations, so that even the money to be got would not be great, though this was by no means the most important consideration. Then, as to professional advantage, it was very uncertain whether the ship to which a dresser was appointed would come into action at all. It was not for him to repeat what had been said of the condition of assistant-surgeons in the navy, but he would remark that if their position was degraded, surely that of these dressers would be still more so. With no opportunity for study, and without any certainty of seeing active service, few indeed, he believed, would not bitterly regret that they had accepted these tempting dresserships. Then, on the other hand, what would the student give up for such an office? Why, he gave up his studies at the most important period. It had been said that the students were for the most part lazy fellows, who spent the whole six months from April to November in idleness. This he did not believe, and even if it were true, they were bound in considering a public question like the present to make provision, not for the idle and dissolute, but for those who were active in study, and of good moral character, as he believed the majority of Edinburgh students to be. But if such a student went out as a dresser to the Baltic, he would not only break in upon his course of study, and lose, perhaps for ever, valuable opportunities, such as the chance of obtaining a resident office in the Hospital, but would be in imminent danger of acquiring such habits in the cock-pit, as would make it necessary to place him for the future in the other class, the idle and dissolute. Much might be said on this subject, but he knew that nothing more was required to ensure unanimity.

Mr Locking seconded the resolution.

This resolution, like all the preceding, having been carried by acclamation, and thanks having been voted to the Chairman, the meeting separated.

[We understand that similar meetings have been held in Aberdeen, and at other medical schools, and we have little doubt that such firm demonstrations of opinion will produce the desired effect. Already captains in the navy have it in their power to grant the required accommodation, but it has been exercised only in a few instances. There is only one step more for the Admiralty to take, and that is to compel naval commanders to do that which they ought ere now to have done voluntarily, in virtue of the hint already so broadly given them. ED.]

DR GRANVILLE ON THE IMPERIAL RUSSIAN FAMILY. DR GRANVILLE, author of "Travels to St Petersburg," etc., has published a letter which he had addressed to Lord Palmerston on the subject of the probable duration of the late Emperor Nicholas's life, so far back as July 6, 1853. Dr G. had communicated his views to the Premier on account of previous personal acquaintance; but his letter does not seem to have had the desired effect of causing the British Government to treat with the Czar as a person labouring under incipient derangement. There is no denying that the medical prediction has in this case proved true, but still Dr G. has to some extent shown himself to belong to that cautious class of prophets who do not make the preNEW SERIES.—NO. IV. April 1855. 2 7.

diction public until the event has been realised. He should have published his letter whenever he saw that Lord Palmerston disregarded his advice.

"Confidential Letter to Viscount Palmerston, dated Kissingen, Bavaria, July 6, 1853.

*

"The health of the Czar is shaken. It has become so gradually for the last five years. He has been irritable, passionate, fanciful, more than usually superstitious, capricious, hasty, precipitate, and obstinate withal,—all from illhealth, unskilfully treated, and of late deteriorating into a degree of cerebral excitement, which, while it takes from him the power of steady reasoning, impels him to every extravagance, in the same manner as with his father in 1800; as with Alexander, in Poland, in 1820; as with Constantine, at Warsaw, in 1830; as with Michael, at St Petersburg, in 1848-9. Like them, his nature feels the fatal transmission of hereditary insanity, the natural consequence of an overlooked and progressive congestion of the brain. Like them, he is hurrying to his fate,-sudden death from congestive disease. The same period of life-between forty-five and sixty years of age-sees the career of this fated family cut short.

"Paul, at first violent and fanatical, a perfect lunatic at forty-five years of age, is despatched at forty-seven, in 1801.

"Alexander dies at Taganrog in December 1825, aged 48. For five years previously his temper and his mind had at times exhibited the parental malady by his capricious and wayward manner of treating the Polish provinces. He died of congestive fever of the brain, during which he knocked down his favourite physician, Sir James Wylie, who assured me of the fact at St Petersburg in 1828, because he wished to apply leeches to his temples.

"Constantine, eccentric always, tyrannical, cruel, dies at Warsaw suddenly, in July 1831, aged 52 years, after having caused rebellion in the country by his harsh treatment of the cadet officers. I saw and conversed with him on the parade, and in his palace, at Warsaw in December 1828. His looks and demeanour sufficiently denoted, to a medical man, what he was and what his fate would be. It has been said that he died of cholera; again, that he had been despatched like his father. The physician of the Polish military hospitals assured me, some years after, that he had died apoplectic and in a rage.

"Michael, after many years of suffering from the same complaints which ( afflict his only surviving brother-enlarged liver, deranged digestion, and fulness of blood in the head-became in 1848-9 intolerably irritable, violent, and tyrannical to his own officers of the artillery and engineers service, of which! he was the supreme chief. In July 1849, he consulted me at St Petersburg. It was after he had passed in review the whole train of artillery which was leaving the capital for Hungary, at which review I was present and near him, and witnessed scenes of violent temper towards generals and aides-de-camps hardly equalled in a lunatic asylum. I found him as described above. I advised cupping, diet, non-exposure to the sun and to fatigue, the administration of suitable medicines, and the cessation from drinking steel mineral waters, of which he was fond ever since he had been at Kissingen. His physician, the younger Sir James Wylie (himself since suddenly dead) assented reluctantly, but did not carry my advice into execution. The Grand Duke, in the state he was, unrelieved by any medical measure or proper treatment, joined the army, rode out in the sun, and fell from his horse apoplectic, in September, 1849, aged 48.

"To complete this disastrous picture of the grandchildren of Catherine, their mother, Maria of Wurtemberg, a most exemplary princess, died apoplectic in November 1829, scarcely more than 65 years of age. The attack, mistaken for weakness, was treated with stimulants and bark by her physician, Ruhl, and bleeding was only had recourse to when the mistake was discovered-but too late to save. The meek and mild Elizabeth had but a short time before