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7

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Of' .

LETTER

TO

MR. KEATE,

SURGEOK-GENER/IL TO THE FORCES

BY ROBERT JACKSON, M. D.

LONDON:

SOLD BY J. MURRAY, FLEET STREET

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RewortJt, Printer, Bell Yard, Temple Ba?»

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ADVERTISEMENT.

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THE following letter has been forced from

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me through necessity. The language of it, I am sensible, is sometimes indecorous as lan¬ guage addressed to gentlemen ; and, as such, it would be inadmissible if the military courts were open to me. But, as these are shut by the circumstances in which I am placed, and, as my character has been attacked insidiously and in a manner singularly aggravating, while I publicly executed my professional duties, I have no remedy of redress left, except the full and open mode of refutation through the press which I have now gone into. It may, per¬ haps, appear to some that I speak insubordi- nately in thus addressing persons of superior official rank to myself ; but the mode of pro-

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( iv )

ceeding, which the physician general and sur- geon genera] adopted with regard to me, has completely absolved me from whatever official connexion might be otherwise supposed to exist between us. Released therefore from all official restraint, I speak without reserve— fear¬ ful only of offending the Truth.

LETTER

LETTER, &c.

SlR,

IN my letter to the military commissioners* elated J uly 50th, I trust I proved to their, and even to your own fullest conviction that the objections, which you make to my statements and opinions respecting the Medical Department of the army, are only subterfuges not refu¬ tations, either in fact or argument, of what I advance on that subject. That task I considered as an official dis¬ charge of duty, and I hope I have fully acquitted it. It now remains for me to address a few words to yourself on your own account, your particular attention to me hav¬ ing also made this necessary. I shall endeavour to be short ; for, as there can be no courteous intercourse be¬ tween you and me, the sooner our business is ended the better. If you have misstated any thing through ignorance, I shall not charge it against you ; but if you, wittingly and wilfully, misrepresent the truth, you must not take it amiss, or consider it as insubordinate, because you are surgeon general, that I freely and fully expose it. You hold an official situation of some importance in the army ; I have also been in the public service, and, though not now employed, I am not interdicted by the laws of the land from speaking truth which may benefit the public ; and I cannot, I believe, benefit the public more effec¬ tually than by exhibiting a true picture of yourself, who

M

are

( % )

arc one of its confidential servants. If your conduct has been correct, you will meet with the approbation of your superiors, and retain their confidence; if otherwise, you may be degraded, perhaps dismissed from your office ; and, if you be such as I state you to be, there will not be much cause to mourn your loss.

You pretend to give some account of me in your ob¬ servations on the fifth report of the military commissioners; and, as you have not been very scrupulously correct in stating the fact on many points of that history, it is my duty to furnish you with better information. If you be disposed to doubt the authenticity of the statements which I make, I shall be ready at any time to confront evidence that I may prove the truth in trial ; but I will not, from henceforth, waste time in noticing your calumnies. Indeed I could not have done it now on any other consi¬ deration, but that you are surgeon general of the British army, and that I myself have held responsible appoint¬ ments in the British service ; in consequence of which it is necessary that our official conduct be exposed to the pub¬ lic for judgment, for you decline submitting it to a mili¬ tary tribunal where alone it could be properly judged.

You state in No. VIII. of your Appendix, that I served as surgeons mate to the late 71s£ regiment in North America , that I obtained an ensigncy before the end of the zvar , and that I was in fact half pay ensign in Octo¬ ber 1793.” This is true; and there is nothing of reproach in it. I was ensign on half pay in 1793; but I was a phy¬ sician by profession, I w7as known then in the medical ivorld as such; and, without arrogating unduly to myself, I think I may say that the rank of army physician at that time was no promotion to a person who stood on the ground on which I stood : it certainly held out no prospect of pecu¬ niary gain, for the income, arising from the exercise of my

profession

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y

profession in a respectable neighbourhood where I bore a fair reputation, was equal if not superior to the appoint¬ ment of physician to the forces. But, as I have men¬ tioned on other occasions that the investigation of fever was a subject which occupied my attention, and, as I knew I should have a better opportunity * of prosecuting my views in the army than in civil life, I offered to serve as army physican with the troops which were collecting for an expedition destined for the West Indies, in the month of September 1793. Mr. Hunter was then surgeon ge¬ neral : I was not eligible to the physician's rank according to his rule ; for I had never borne a medical commission, consequently my offer was not accepted. My purpose, * in offering service, was principally a professional pur¬ suit ; I therefore presented myself again as ready to take the surgeoncv of a regiment destined for the West Indies, on the condition of being appointed physician on the lirst proper occason. This was sinking rank and foregoing emo¬ lument for the sake of a professional object. The Buff was offered and accepted : the half pay of ensign was sunk; and, thus sunk, it wras a price or equivalent for the surgeoncy obtained: hence it cannot, as you infer, be said in strict propriety that 1 received the surgeon's commission for no¬ thing. The destination of the Buff was changed : it did not go to the West Indies with Sir Charles Grey as w^as intended, and I was disappointed. You were then in- spector of regimental infirmaries, and I recollect to have written to you, stating that 1 would willingly exchange with the surgeon of any of the regiments actually going with Sir Charles Grey's expedition. You returned for answer that you did not know of any surgeon who wras disposed to exchange ; but you observed to me that, if I would resign the surgeoncy of the Buff, you would re¬ commend me for hospital mate, and assign me a station

in

( 4 )

lfi the West Indies. This I declined. You observe how** ever that you offered me the surgeoncy of the 10th regi¬ ment of foot, which was then in Jamaica. Of this 1 have not the most distant recollection; but, if the offer had been made, as you state, I certainly should not have ac¬ cepted it, as my object lay in the scene of war not in a peaceable garrison. To this you add that I manifested dissatisfaction ill a very few weeks, and applied for leave to ^ell the commission of surgeon to the Sd regiment or Buff. I do not possess the form of application to which you allude ; but I am confident, from what I know of myself, that you have not represented it fairly. I probably stated to Lord Amherst, (for I have no copy of the letter and do not recollect the circumstances), that I accepted the surgeoncy of the Buff that I might thereby, accord¬ ing to the then existing regulation of the service, become eligible to the office of army physician, and consequently that I might then obtain that appointment. If this condi¬ tion was not to be fulfilled, and particularly as the Buff was not then in orders for foreign service, it is likely I signified my intention of retiring from the army, and that I desired leave to sell the commission of surgeon, or to obtain an ehsigncy for sale, as an equivalent for the half pay which I had given up by accepting a medical appoint¬ ment. This implied no favour or indulgence ; it w as in fact no more than what, in fair reason and justice, I had a right to expect. You remark however that, by your letter to Lord Amherst on this subject, you first incurred my displeasure. That could not be ; for your answer was never communicated to me, and I did not know that such an answer, or such a letter existed until I saw7 it in the Appendix to the observations which you have just now published. The flippancy of the style shews plainly ' that you were young in office, and somewhat petulant in

spirit ;

( 5 )

spirit; but it could not irritate me, for it did not come to my knowledge.

In proceeding with your history of me you observe that I found means to ingratiate myselj greatly with some of my military superiors on the Continent.” By the manner in what you express yourself, you seem to insinu¬ ate that I employed unworthy means. It happens fortu¬ nately in this case that my character is generally known in the army, and that no insinuations from the pen of Mr# Keate will be permitted to make impression on it. I have maintained a correct moral conduct through life, and I am, from natural inclination, attentive to the duties of my profession. By these means I obtained, and I continued to preserve the good opinion of all the military officers under whom I ever served; nor am I conscious that I owe promotion to any other cause. It was know7!} in the army in 1794- that I accepted the surgeoncy of the Buff that I might be eligible to the rank of physician ; and it was also known, and it ought not to be concealed from the public that, because I had become a regimental surgeon, I was thereby, according to the regulation of the Medical Board, disqualified from attaining the physician’s rank, or executing the physician’s duty in a military hos¬ pital. This seems incongruous with common sense ; and so perhaps it was considered by the higher powers, for you know7 yourself that one of the early acts of His Royal Highness, Field Marshal Duke of York, after he assumed the office of Commander in Chief in 1795, went to en¬ force my appointment in the army as physician, on the condition of my submitting to the examination of the London College when the circumstances of the ser¬ vice permitted my return to England. I was thus ap¬ pointed acting army physician by the authority of His Royal Highness ; but I was then considered only as acting.

b 3 Tlio

( 6 )

The examinations, on which the confirmation of the ap¬ pointment depended, had not yet taken place, when I w'as left as head of the hospital staff which remained on the continent with the cavalry. Dr. Kennedy, who had *v served as inspector of hospitals with the continental army, died in the mean time, and I was appointed to succeed him. This was not effected by my own con- trivance as you seem to insinuate ; for, I do not believe that I knew of Dr. Kennedy’s death, when I saw my name in the Gazette as his successor. It was the act of His Royal Highness, the Commander in Chief, and His Royal Highness must be supposed to have had grounds on which to rest his official act. That the Medical Board opposed it, and remonstrated against it, is, I be¬ lieve, true ; and, as the Board did not communicate with me during the time I remained on the continent, as head of the hospital staff, it did not appear to acknowledge the validity of my appointment. You here, as one of the number, shewed resentment ; whether you fulfilled your duty to your Sovereign and the public by so doing, I leave others to judge.

You pretend to give an account of me, but you do not give a complete one, there being a material part of my history which you pass over without notice, or which you designedly obscure. You know that I was inspector of hospitals in 1795, and you know that, called from thence in September for other service, I accompanied the expe¬ dition which was sent to the West-Indies under the com¬ mand of General Sir Ralph Abercrombie, and that I did so with the rank of assistant inspector. This you must know' was optional with myself. It never would have been required of me, consistently with the rules of service, to become assistant inspector from inspector of full rank had I not chosen so to do. This however I

did;

( 7 )

did ; and you may know that I did so for the sake of prosecuting my professional study. I said then, and so did others, that I was treated unfairly in being denied the rank of army physician, for that was the condition under which I entered the service, or accepted a surgeoncy ; but you probably know that I never solicited rank or emolument, either directly or indirectly, after I attained that step ; you even I presume know that I declined accepting the rank of inspector general when it was within my reach. I must also tell you, if you do not know it, that I have ever offered my services to the public when¬ ever I thought they would be useful, but that I never so¬ licited appointments for the sake of their advantages, and that what you now say, viz. that I succeeded in getting appointed, without knowledge of the Army Medical Board, physician and head of the hospital for the depot at Chatham is not correctly said, if you mean thereby that any application was made on my part for that situ¬ ation. I in fact, not only made no application for it, but I had no knowledge of the death of Dr. Mitchell, (for I was at a distance from London,) till I had inti¬ mation that the Commander in Chief had nominated me to the succession ; and I have thus reason to think that this act, which was so grievous to the Medical Board, and which was not desired by me, was entirely the act of His Royal Highness, the Duke of York.

You must be sensible, Sir, in your own mind that you do not state facts correctly, and that you are wrong in what you say with regard to the changes and causes of change which took place among the medical officers who were attached to Chatham hospital at the time I entered

» f-

upon duty at that place. I mentioned to you verbally,

for I saw you in London some time after I had made myself acquainted with things at Chatham, that I was

b 4 desirous

( 3 )

desirous of having a surgeon at the depot, whom I knew to be a good operating surgeon. To this you readily as¬ sented, and charged yourself with giving it effect. The apothecary was removed some time after, not from objection on my part, but on account of a regulation which took place in the month of March or April, in consequence of which persons of military experience, viz. surgeons or apothecaries, were to be stationed in recruiting districts for the examination of recruits, instead of hos¬ pital mates who were found not to be competent to the duty. Mr. Dowse, the apothecary, was removed to a recruiting district in consequence of this regulation ; and 1 hoped that the removal would have proved an advantage to him, for I considered it as promotion ; and he de¬ served promotion, if humanity, worth, and integrity have any claim. He had besides served His Majesty long, and I should have been glad if Chatham could have af¬ forded him something more comfortable than what he possessed ; but he was not stationed at Chatham in charge of apothecary’s stores, and he did not in fact execute the apothecary’s duty. That, as you know, had been placed in the hands of one of the hospital mates with an extra allowance for supposed extra trouble. Besides a surgeon of my own choice, I also wished to have a medical officer of intelligence and activity to assist in executing the medical duties at the depot, for these seemed to be ex¬ tensive and of a varied nature. I mentioned to you that I was desirous Dr. Borland should be attached to this duty. He had a physician’s diploma, and he had at the same time the rank of assistant inspector of hospitals, which according to a War Office letter entitled him to act as physician in His Majesty’s hospitals. * He had

been

® The surgeon general observes that the Special Board , appointed to

enquire

( 9 )

been with me in St. Domingo as surgeon to the forces, and in Jersey as assistant inspector of hospitals for the Russian auxiliaries ; so that I was well acquainted with

his

enquire into the management of the hospital in the Isle of Wight, blamed me for depriving Dr. Maclaurin of that participation in the treatment of the sick, which the ( Medical ) Board intended y- and expressly directed tli.at lie should have ; but that it took no noticp of the insubordination ajul diso¬ bedience with which I had persisted to employ as a physician Dr. Borland, a mere surgeon, who hud never been in any way examined respecting his knowledge of physic, not even when he was made an hospital mate.” It is plain, from what the surgeon general himself has put before the public, that Dr. Maclaurin acted the part of a secret informer for the Army Me- dical Board. His informations tended to criminate my conduct ; but ou what points I did not precisely learn. As I hate altercation, and as I did not choose to be disturbed in the execution of my office, I made such arrangement of the sick that Dr. Maclaurin’s duty as a physician ceased.

I informed Mr. Keate himself, in the presence of General Hewett, that', it should not again commence while I remained at Chatham ; nay further,

I informed the Board officially by letter, consequent to their letter of the 4th of July which will appear at its place, that, if ever the circum¬ stances of the depot hospital should render the presence of a regular physician necessary. Dr. Maclaurin was a person that I could not receive. This was plain and open language ; and if it be deemed refractory, it was the duty of the physician general and surgeon general to have chastised it at the time. But, while the facts which 1 have now staled will pro¬ bably be considered as a sufficient justification of what I did with regard to Dr. Maclaurin, I may also defend what I did with regard to assistant inspector Borland by War Office authority, which is higher than that of the Medical Board. Mr. Keate cannot be ignorant that it was expressly ordered, in an official letter from the Secretary at War, that persons holding the rank of assistant inspector should positively and directly do the duty of physician in military hospitals ; and he must also know that Dr. John Wright and Dr. Theodore Gordon were appointed assist¬ ant inspectors of hospitals at St. Domingo under that condition, and ex¬ pressly for that purpose ; the regular physicians, according to Mr. Weir’s representation, not having been found sufficiently effective for medical duty in that climate. This order of the War Office was not, so far as I know, formally revoked ; and it not revoked, it must be supposed to have been in force i$ 1801: hence, in giving medical duty to a com¬ missioned

( 10 >

his intelligence, and could depend on his zeal and acti¬ vity. Dr. Borland's appointment I believe you your¬ self would not have opposed ; but it appears that it was objected to on the part of the physician general, who recommended a regular physician for the Chatham hos¬ pital duty. To the physician named for this service I had no objection on his own account, for I had no knowledge of him ; but I thought that Dr. Borland, as having a general acquaintance with military affairs, would be more useful than a person from civil life, who was a mere physician. I therefore still persisted in expecting that he would be attached to the depot ; and thence it was proposed that, as he would in all probability do physician's duty, he should submit to a medical examination previously to his attachment. This, he at first thought Unnecessary, as he deemed himself entitled to act as phy¬ sician in virtue of the War-Office authority -he how¬ ever at last consented, and, when he consented, the Board, departing from its own proposal, sent him to Chatham to be employed as I thought fit, without admitting him to trial for the purpose of ascertaining his medical quali¬ fication. This is the fact ; and, if so, the Board is re¬ sponsible for all the evils which have arisen from this gentleman’s supposed insufficiency, for it was in the power of Sir Lucas Pepys to try his abilities and judge his fitness before he was permitted to act as army phy¬ sician at the King’s general hospitals.

It is extremely irksome, Sir, to follow you through

missioned assistant inspector of hospitals, I obeyed the just authority; for all orders to me, as head of the depot hospital, could only in strict pro¬ priety be received through a military channel.— -Mr. Keate knew the truth on this subject ; but the disguise suited his purpose, and he knows, from his experience of mankind, that disguise is more attractive and cap¬ tivating than simple trtuh.

your

your details, for it does not seem to be in your nature to state a single point of fact without, in some way or other? perverting its truth. You say I had gone to Chatham with the purpose of making considerable innovations in the diet and treatment of the sick according to my own pecu¬ liar notions , and that I had by my sole authority , super¬ seded the diet tables for military hospitals established by His Majesty s regulations, and introduced another which appeared insufficient for the proper nourishment of the patients .” * You further remark that Dr. Maclaurin, after remonstrating with me on this subject, as well as on my extraordinary and violent methods of treating the sick, made a formal representation to the Board on these matters on the 8th of June, 1801.” You have here, Sir, brought yourself and the Board into an awkward di¬ lemma, for you have developed a secret, though unde- signedly, that Dr. Maclaurin was your agent, sent to Chatham to bring about a purpose more strictly perhaps for the physician general than yourself. I would be glad, if I could get quit of the subject without mention¬ ing Dr. Maclaurin’s name as he is not living to answer for himself ; but, us that cannot be done, it is necessary to say in the first place that Dr. Maclaurin made none of those remonstrances to me to which you allude. If he had, any body, who knows the army, must know that I could not have avoided putting him under arrest ; for remonstratices, such as you insinuate, are perfectly irregu¬ lar, subversive of all discipline and good order, such as obtains among king’s officers on service. You must be sensible yourself, as well as your colleague, that Dr. Maclaurin was not entitled, in virtue of his commission of physician, to remonstrate with me on the management

* See Table of Diets.

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N. B. It in ay be seen from a comparative view of the above scales of diet that the diet table introduced by me into the depot hospital is not a starving diet* if that, now sanctioned by all the members of the Medical Board and adopted in all the hospitals, be sufficient. The extra diet was ordered according to the wants of the individual case— and thn variety given at the depot appears, by the extra tables, to have been very considerable.

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( 14 )

of Chatham hospital. The right of medical remonstrance and controul belonged to the Medical Board alone ; and, though Dr. Maclaurin was certainly the Board's agent, he was not announced to me and acknowledged by me as its deputy. He did not complain as a physician that any thing was withheld from him which he required for the cure of those sick who w ere placed under his care : and, while he met with no interruption in the execution of his duty, his communications w ith the Board were irre¬ gular; and he, I maintain, had no right to animadvert on my general arrangements. So much for Dr. Maclaurin in the first instance. I admit in the second that I introduced alterations into the diet tables of the sick and convales¬ cent ; for it was my inclination, and I believed it to be my duty, to do every thing for the good of the soldier and the public. The propriety of these alterations wrere however to be judged by the Medical Board not by Dr. Maclaurin. You yourself were, I believe, informed of the most material of them ; in fact, you must have known of them all. You saw the hospital yourself ; you examined every thing in it, particularly the diet tables, the manner of exhibiting the expenditures, the order, economy and arrangement of the sick in their w ards, and you gave your unqualified approbation to every thing you saw, in the presence of General Hewett, Mr. Warren, and some others.

In regard to the subject of hospital diet, I must here remind you and your colleague that you do not appear to be sufficiently instructed in the knowledge that is neces¬ sary for the just execution of your office ; for you formed a table diet for hospitals without knowing the diet allowed for the duty soldier in barracks. The rate of diet which I allow is calculated on a lower scale than that which was adopted in British hospitals in 1801 ; but

r-

' it

1

( 15 )

it appears to me to be a diet, not less full, perhaps more acceptable, as will be seen by a comparison of the dif¬ ferent diet tables annexed, than that which has been since approved and sanctioned by all the members of the Me¬ dical Board, and which is now adopted in all the British military hospitals, general as well as regimental, through¬ out the kingdom. The rate of diet, which you established for British military hospitals when you entered upon your office, was fixed apparently without knowledge of the highest quantity of meat which was allowed to a soldier in barracks ; for had you known this simple fact, (and the Army Medical Board ought not to have been unac¬ quainted with it,) you would, I presume, have spared your reprehension of my alterations, for they are in part adopted in your last regulations. No man of common understanding supposes that a convalescent man, one for instance who is confined within the walls of an hospital, requires more animal food for his support and sustenance than a soldier who is employed in active service in the field ; yet the full diet of British military general hos¬ pitals comprehended, in the year 1801, a full pound of beef, while the highest barrack allowance was, as it still is, only three quarters of a pound. This seems an ab¬ surdity; and I suppose it proceeded from ignorance. You have now corrected it ; but it is probable that my inno¬ vations led you to consider the case, and to discover the error. The full diet of British hospitals is now reduced to the measure of the barrack allowance ; but, if you compare your hospital diet with that of other military powers on the Continent, you will probably find that you are still too high. The most of these place it lower than the ration of the barracks : This you may see in the table annexed ; but setting this aside, I must further add that, if you take the trouble to watch the sick and con¬ valescent

( 16 )

valescent at their meals, you will not fail to observe that what I allotted to the different classes of hospital patients, at Chatham and in the Isle of Wight, is as much as can be fairly and properly consumed. Of this I am well assured from correct observation ; but, while 1 say so, I must also inform you, and you I presume know it already, that no officer, surgeon or physician who acted under my orders, was ever restrained in ordering, as extra, an^ kind or quantity of diet or refreshment which he thought necessary or essential for the recovery of the patient.— If Or. Maclaurin had been so restrained, he would have had reason to complain and to remonstrate ; but, as the case actually was I do not see on what foundation his cause of complaint rests, for it w as not with him, but with me to form arrangements and superintend the exe- cution of all the duties at Chatham hospital, whether medical or surgical. I was head of Chatham hospital by commission ; and, if 1 wras thought not to be qualified for the duties of that station, it belonged to the Medical Board, and more expressly to the physician general to ascertain the fact by his own inspection and observation. He was in fact invited so to do by Major General Hew- ett, and even by myself in a letter dated the 21st of June ; in which I professed myself ready to resign the situation w hich I held at the army depot, if evidence was produced that I was unfit for so great a trust. The physician general, who, according to medical etiquette, is the only person of the Board who could be permitted to try and ascertain my qualifications as a physician, declined to sa¬ tisfy himself on this head ; and, in so doing, I think, I may be allowed to say that he shrunk from his public duty; and I may further add that the Board, possessed of those informations which the surgeon general now pro¬ duces, but which he, with the other members of the

Boards

( 17 )

Board, then denied to exist, commits himself to speak against the testimony of facts. A letter from the Board, dated the 4th of July in answer to mine of the 21st of June, both of which I shall here subjoin for the sake of refreshing your memory, seems to say that you had not witnessed , or supposed any impropriety in my conduct It is unfortunate for you that this letter has been preserved ; for, though the language of it is equivocal, it must still be held to contain an acquittal from all the reports and insinuations that had been made by your agents at Chatham respect- ing my improper treatment of the sick. As the depot was totally removed from Chatham in a few days after the date of this letter, you condemn yourself to something worse than ignorance, when you recur to the errors and mismanagement which took place at Chatham hospital between December 1800, and July 1801. You ap¬ proved of tl^e hospital economy and management ver¬ bally when you made your visit in the month of J une ; and, as a member of the Board, you must be supposed to have done away all surmises and suspicions existing against my professional conduct by your official signature in the letter of the 4th of July.

Copy of a Letter dated at Chatham, June 21, 1801.

GENTLEMEN,

I HAVE transmitted the monthly return of Chatham hospital as usual, and I observe that the list of deaths is rather high. As I understand that the mor¬ tality at Chatham hospital has been a subject of animad¬ version with the Army Medical Board, and consequently that the conduct of the head of the department, as re¬ sponsible for the execution of the medical duties, has not

c passed

( 18 )

passed without censure, I think it proper to give you some information upon the subject which may serve to correct your opinions. In the first place, the number or recruits which have passed through Chatham garrison, these last six or eight months greatly exceeds the pro¬ portion of former periods,-— and the sickness it is pre¬ sumed bears proportion to the number of recruits. I thus believe there has been more sickness, I mean real sickness in Chatham garrison these last eight months than there ordinarily was in preceding periods ; and, though the return of persons borne upon the hospital establish¬ ment has been materially diminished, the cause is not a diminution of real sickness, but of a different arrange¬ ment. Formerly there appeared to be a great proportion of invalids waiting for their discharge who lived upon the hospital, and all recruits who were affected with itch- were considered as patients and borne upon the hospital books. This would add a third to the number of persons ad¬ mitted upon the hospital returns ; so that no fair con¬ clusion can be drawn, in this case, from a comparison of numbers. I mention this fact that the Army Medical Board may not be drawn into error by recurring to a fallacious argument.

I am aware that pains have been taken to give a bad impression of the medical management of Chatham hos¬ pital ; but, as my professional principles are before the public, and, as the military officer under whom I serve may be supposed to have some knowledge of the punc¬ tuality of execution, I leave them to themselves. If the physician general, to whom the investigation of this mat¬ ter must be supposed to belong, can bring forward suffi¬ cient evidence to convince the Commander in Chief that I am deficient in capacity for so important a duty as the

-medical charge of the recruiting dep6t, or that I am

wanting

( 19 )

\

wanting in diligence, I have no doubt that His Royal High¬ ness, who is desirous to consult the good of the army, will have no hesitation in replacing me by a person better qualified. No man ought to occupy an important public situation who does not deserve confidence; and I will add for my own part, that I should be unwilling to retain it for an hour after confidence is diminished.

(Signed) ROBERT JACKSON*

N. B. I cannot pretend to say that this letter is a ver¬ batim copy of that sent to the Board on the 21st of June; for it is taken from a loose scroll, the sub¬ stance is however correct, if the expression should vary.

COPY.

Upper Brook-Street , July 4, 1801.

Sir,

WE have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 21st ult. with the monthly return of sick in Chatham hospital, to which we deem it necessary to say a few words in reply : with regard to the observations you make, on the notice taken by us, of the great mor¬ tality in that hospital, we must beg leave to say that no im¬ putation has been attempted to be thrown upon your cha¬ racter : you will admit that it was a circumstance which demanded our most serious consideration, and which had we passed over silently, would have proved an inattention to the most important part of our duty, wholly inexcuse- able. Your explanation of the cause, viz. the increased number of recruits that pass through the depot ; and the reason you at the same time give for the sick list not being increased, although the serious cases are more nu¬ merous, are satisfactory as far as they go ; but we mu&t

c 2 observe

I

( 20 )

observe that it was the former circumstance induced the surgeon general to suppose further medical aid was neces¬ sary in the hospital ; and, if the slight cases are not ad¬ mitted to be borne upon the hospital establishment, they must nevertheless require medical assistance.

It is as much our inclination as it is our duty to support the heads of establishments, in our department, in the due execution of their offices ; and in justice to the public, to us, and to yourself, you cannot for a moment think* that had we witnessed, or supposed any impropriety in your conduct* we should have attacked it by insinuations or uncandid rumours : but, placed in the important situation you are, and enjoying confidence which we can have no motive for wishing to shake, we submit, if it is not in¬ cumbent on you explicitly to say, whether considering the great and constant influx of recruits, the various diseases thereby brought into the garrison, and the extent of your duties, the sufferings of many of the patients might not in some cases be mitigated, by calling to your aid further medical assistance: and as it is our duty to give every proper support to the heads of departments, so must it equally be yours, to support any gentleman, who may be directed to do duty under you, which we trust you will in future do.

We are,

Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant, (Signed) L. PEPYS.

T. KEATE. JOHN RUSH.

The army depot, as 1 observed above, wras totally re¬ moved from Chatham early in July, and you had yourself, a short time previously to this, expressed your satisfaction, in the presence of General Hewett and others, at all the

changes

( 21 )

changes and alterations which had been adopted in the hospital; nay, even on the 4th of July, the Board, in its collective capacity, does not pretend to maintain that there existed any error in the mode of treating the sick. If you and your colleagues had at any time believed the reports which had been made to you by Dr. Maclaurin, you nowT disavowed them. You soon however appear to have changed your minds; for you penned your accusation on the 10th of December, and you there rest principally on Dr. Mac- laurin’s evidence, which could not extend beyond the gar¬ rison at Chatham. You thus commityourselves to unworthy equivocation ; for it is proved by the letter from the Board of the 4th of July, and, by your own express declaration to General Hewett, that my professional conduct, while the depot remained at Chatham, was absolved from blame. It is manifest from the sequel, that you had harboured a purpose of malice in your mind which you then con¬ cealed, or rather disingenuously denied to exist. If you look at the case yourself, you will not I presume maintain that you acted openly and honourably, or in a manner becoming the surgeon general of the British army,

It appears you had been called upon by the Secretary at War, some time after the depot was removed from Chatham, to give your opinion whether or not the plan which I had adopted for conducting the hosputal business at the army depot, was such as might be adopted for the other hospitals in Britain with advantage. Your letter to the Secretary at War shews that you were alarmed and irritated at the idea of introducing economy into the Bri¬ tish hospitals ; and, as you could not directly argue against economy, you waved the question by criminating my pro¬ fessional character. You know the means which you em¬ ployed to effect this purpose. I shall notice them by and bye ; in the mean time I shall state the charges which ypu

c 3 made

( 22 )

made against me, together with their refutation and the decision of the Commander in Chief thereon.

Copy of a Letter from the Army Medical Board to the Secretary at War , dated December 0.0th , 1801.

Sir,

WE have the honour to acknowledge the re¬ ceipt of your letter of the 14th ult. with the inclosed pa- pears, directing us, after comparing the statement of the expenditure for the hospital in the Isle of Wight, with that for other general hospitals in this country, to report to you our opinion whether it would be expedient at pre¬ sent to make any, and what alteration in the system es¬ tablished by Dr. Jackson, or whether Dr. Jackson’s re¬ gulations appear to have been framed with so due a re¬ gard to economy, and to the advantage of the troops, as to afford just ground for considering the propriety of in¬ troducing them into other general hospitals at home.”

We have the honor to acquaint you, that we have made the comparative statement of the expenditure for that hospital with that of the other general hospitals at home, but we find, that, by far the greater proportion of patients in those hospitals, is of a very different descrip¬ tion of sick from those former] v at Chatham, and now in

* '

the Isle of Wight.

With respect to the question unconnected with other circumstances, which in the course of this investigation it will be our duty to lay before you, it appears to be, whe¬ ther a liberal and generous diet is requisite to restore men, who have either been debilitated by disease, or by active debilitating remedies.

It appears that Dr. Jackson’s mode of carrying on the Isle of Wight hospital is an apparent saving of money ;

but

( 23 )

but at the Isle of Wight, and lately at Chatham, we have observed an unprecedented number of deaths : viz. 27 in the last month, and 12 in the last week, frequent relapses^ and tedious recoveries, with a debilitated state of the pa¬ tients ; therefore, so far from economy being effected, there has been a very serious loss of men, and ultimately a very great expenditure ; these returns called upon us to recommend that two physicians should be immediately sent to the Isle of Wight.

We now beg leave to refer to the inclosed letters, num¬ bers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and this we do in obedience to your commands, when we had the honor of waiting upon you. It appears therefore, that Dr. Jackson has altered the established diet tables as used in all our hospitals, and sanctioned by his Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, and that he has reduced many other articles of comfort and nourishment.

We have thought it would throw some light on the subject before you, to send you the enclosed monthly re¬ port of the foreign military hospitals at the Isle of Wight for the month of October last, by which a comparative statement of the mortality in the same place, under diffe¬ rent diet and treatment, may be made. Upon the whole it will appear that Dr. Jackson’s system of economy is not to the advantage of the troops, and should not be in¬ troduced into our home general hospitals ; and we hum¬ bly submit, that it will be necessary to enforce the printed regulations for general hospitals in the Isle of Wight.

We have, &c.

(Signed) L. PEPYS.

T. KEATE.

C 4

The

( 24 )

The charges here made are serious in their nature ; and His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, in concur¬ rence with the Secretary at War, judged it expedient that they should be investigated by a board of medical officers, who were competent to judge the case and ascer¬ tain the truth of the fact in all its relations ; for it was highly important to His Majesty’s service that it should be fully and fairly investigated, and known. You then, as may be seen by the following letter of the 28th of De^ cember, withdrew or modified your charges. The enquiry notwithstanding took place ; though it may be concluded, from the following letter, that you would not have been displeased if it had been suspended.

COPY,

belter from the Physician and Surgeon General to the Deputy Secretary at War .

Upper Brook-Street, 28th Dec. 1801.

Sir,

a WE have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 25th inst. and we beg leave humblv to represent, for the consideration of His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief, and of the Secretary at War, that it does not occur to us, that in our letter of the 10th mst. zee animadverted on the practice of Dr. Jackson , at the Isle of Wight; but we thought it our duty to repre¬ sent the great mortality there, and consequently animad¬ verted on the success of the practice ; or otherwise we must appear to His Royal Highness to prejudge Hr. Jackson, and to pass a censure where, from our not hav¬ ing witnessed and investigated Dr, Jacksons practice, we

might

C 25 )

might do an act of injustice ; we hope you will pardon the liberty we have taken in referring to the above expres¬ sion in your letter, and we humbly conceive that the Se¬ cretary at War will not disapprove of this explanation.

We have the honor, Sec. Sec. Sec.

M. Lewis, Esq. L. PEPYS.

%c. i 5rc: 4rc. T. KEATE.”

The enquiry which had been ordered took place, and you say now it was made completely ex parte.” The special Board applied for leave to publish its proceedings on this subject, and obtained it. You were, as I have been informed, desirous the publication of the report should be withheld : it has however appeared, and, with it, your own letter retracting your remarks respecting the con¬ duct of that board. But that you may see that the inves¬ tigation was not ex parte ; at least that there was no desire on my part to shrink from any scrutiny that should be instituted, I shall subjoin a letter from General Hewett to Sir John M. Hayes, who was president of the board* This is sufficient to shew that the Board was invited on the part of the general to make the fullest investigation into the subject ; and, 1, for my own part, aver that I was dis¬ appointed, when I did not find yourself and the physician general with all your evidence in the Isle of Wight, pre¬ pared to support the charges you had given in against me. —I was even disappointed that the investigation was not more formal than it was.

( 26 )

u Isle of Wight , Dec. 30th, 1801.

f< Sir,

u ON the 23d inst. I received the notification of the Secretary at War, of your intended arrival at this depot, and yesterday’s post brought me the papers marked 1, 2, 3, 4, all of which have been in your possession ; as they contain imputations on the professional skill and practice of Dr. Jackson, accompanied with assertions that the sick under his care have been treated with foul inhumanity , I consider it a duty I owe the Doctor s charac¬ ter to state to you the regulations which govern the du¬ ties of this depot, (and which I herewith enclose, No. 9,) have been in force ever since I have been with it. They will furnish you with the most satisfactory evidence the inquiry can receive.

With respect to the medical treatment of the sick, I cannot be supposed capable of forming any opinion, much less should I think of offering one; yet whilst I continue to place in Dr. Jackson’s hands, my life and the lives of my family, my belief that his skill is equal to his assiduity cannot be doubted, and I shall always feel a pleasure in gratefully declaring my conviction, that his judgment and attention have been the means of rescu¬ ing many of us from serious disorders ; but, though I readily acknowledge my ignorance of the cure of disease, I have been too long in the habit of observing the causes which produce it in soldiers, to feel any hesitation in pointing out what I conceive to be the occasion of its increase in Parkhurst barracks. Among the first of these may be reckoned the low situation of the barracks and hospital, the extreme bad nature of the soil on which * they

( 27 )

they stand,— a clay so tenacious as to retain on its surface every drop of water which falls on it, and incapa¬ ble of draining or improvement ; the barracks (which are besides defective in general arrangement and construction) are in consequence unavoidably covered with mud and dirt, and filled with damp and unwholesome air; the hos¬ pital partakes in a great degree of these disadvantages, though every precaution is used to mitigate them, as Dr. Jackson will more clearly point out; it is extremely crowded, so much so, that the worst cases only can be received into it ; and when convalescent, the men cannot be dismissed early, for if permitted to go out into the damp and wet which surround them, a relapse and death are generally the consequence ; rooms in barracks have been allotted for the slighter cases and convalescent men ; but, as these open immediately to the external air, and have their gable ends pointed to the south, and are destitute of co- lonades, pavement, or flags for dry exercise, partaking of all the disadvantages of a camp, which they resemble more than a barrack, they are in the highest degree un¬ favourable for recovery. To these causes may be added the assembling so very numerous a collection of men of every bad description from jails, crowded transports, fo¬ reign climates and foreign service; they are unavoidably mixed with young recruits of the fullest habits of health, and the latent infection brought by these people appears too late to prevent its being communicated : thus disease spreads rapidly ; for the number of men placed in the sleeping rooms must evidently tend to promote conta¬ gion.

From the failure of one of the two pumps in the bar¬ racks, water has been brought from the river; this too may be unwholesome.

In visiting the hospital, which I have always done at

uncertain

( 28 )

uncertain times, I have constantly witnessed the utmost order and cleanliness. I am always ready to listen to every complaint the soldier may wish to prefer; and, previous to his leaving the depot, every one is called upon to state to the officer who receives him, whether he has any cause of complaint, and the officer is required to sign a certificate that he has none, otherwise the man is detained and the grievance fully redressed. Not the slightest has ever reached me against Dr. Jackson, or any of his staff, either directly, or through Colonel Farquhar, who has the immediate command of the interior manage¬ ment of this depot, or by any other channel ; and this proves I think incontestibly, that the men do not con¬ sider themselves as inhumanly treated ; and I firmly believe that could I descend to canvas opinion, or so¬ licit complaint from them, I should meet only expres¬ sions of thankfulness for Dr. Jackson's kind and anx¬ ious solicitude for their health and welfare : on this sub¬ ject however, you shall have the most ample means of information ; every staff officer and every soldier shall be at your command for examination ; and if you can point out any other mode of enquiry, it shall be readily open to you, for I wish to challenge inspection into every the most minute point which can bear on the subject which brings you here, and which I consider as embracing the means of preventing, as well as checking diseases, or I should not have troubled you or myself with this detail.

u It may be right for me here to observe on the letter marked No. 1, that it gave occasion to an address from the Medical Board to me, when at Chatham, No. 12: and on my giving an answer, the copy of which is here¬ with inclosed, No. 10, it produced a visit from the sur^ geon general, whose arrival was most properly unexpected; he was on the instant taken to every ward in the general

hospital,

( 29 )

hospital, he had an opportunity of seeing and examining most minutely into every circumstance which he required or could possibly be pointed out to him ; and on my then desiring to know, whether any* thing was defective, and in the power of my authority to correct or provide, he declared in the presence of Dr. Jackson, and Surgeon Warren, his unqualified satisfaction at every thing he had seen ; the diet made part of his examination, and in which were many deviations from the printed form (some of them the consequence of his own recommendation to Dr. Jack- son); and neither then nor since, until the arrival of the Secretary at War’s letter of the 22d inst. did I ever learn that the Medical Board had any objection to them; it is cer¬ tain that they have been in its possession for many months, and the Medical Board could not be unacquainted with Dr. Jackson's practice at that time or previous to it, for it is in print ; I cannot therefore but be surprized to find that complaint making a part of the present charge.

The irregular mode in w hich the business of the hos¬ pital vras carried on, after its arrival in this island, wras owing to circumstances not in our power to prevent, and which are stated in my letter to the War office, No. 11, so Ions ago as the 1st of November. Dr. Jackson will ex- plain to you better than I can do the difficulties he had to encounter, previous to that period ; I mention it only to shew that it was necessity, not choice, which occa¬ sioned any transaction to take place not strictly conform¬ able with his usual mode of proceeding, and no blame can attach to him, as he never concealed any thing that was done or doing, but on the contrary produced it for pub¬ lic examination, and approval or rejection,

I have perhaps gone to a length on this subject which may be thought unnecessary; for to the Medical Board alone, I conceive,, belongs the regulation of the

army

( 30 )

army hospitals as far as relates to the medical treatment of the sick, and to them alone must attach responsibility, for whatever they are or can be acquainted with, Mr, Keate’s approbation on a former occasion, and the sub¬ sequent silence of the Board, certainly implied an acqui- escence in Dr. Jackson’s practice.

Among the other remedies which may occur to you for giving a temporary melioration to the state of the bar¬ racks, the increasing the allowance of coals for the sitting rooms during the wet and winter months, and the use of stoves for drying the air of the sleeping rooms in the day, may not be unworthy your consideration.

Doubtful, from indisposition and other causes, of being able to see you this day, I have committed to paper what I should otherwise have said, and have the honor- to remain,

Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

S. HEWETT, M. G”

u J . M. Hayes , Bart .

#t*. fyc. fyc.

You observe further in No. VIII. of your appendix that, in consequence of this enquiry , viz . the enquiry of the special Board , the Medical Board was authorized by His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief to write , and on the 3d of February did write to me , di¬ recting me to deliver over the medical patients to the care of two army physicians who had been sent thither for that purpose, and to confine myself to the duties of inspection. The medical care of the sick I mifst here in¬ form you, though you knew it before, had been in the hands of the army physicians alluded to from the 1st of Janu¬ ary 1802, the day after the hospital was inspected by the

special

( 31 )

Special board. As you affirm with much assurance tha 1 was superseded from medical duty, in consequence of the enquiry that was instituted at the Isle of Wight, I must here beg leave to state the case as it really is. The report of the Board is now before the public. Whether any besides yourself and your colleague will venture to draw' such a conclusion from that report as you draw, I much doubt. But, as the report itself might not be decisive, as not being official, I shall here in addition to its testimony, with the arguments of which you are now acquainted, subjoin the letter of the Secretary at War to Major General Hewett, containing the pleasure of the Commander in Chief on that subject. It will there ap¬ pear, who are the persons that, in His Royal Highness’s opinion, had done their duty or were held fit to do it.

War Office, January 1 6th, 1802.,

(c Sir,

I HAVE the honor to inclose for your infor¬ mation a copy of the report of the special Board of Medical Officers appointed to investigate the several circumstances lately represented by the physician and surgeon general, relative to the sick in the military hospitals in the Isle of Wight, and to acquaint you that His Royal Highness has perused this report with great satisfaction, as contain-, ing a clear and able statement of the causes of diseases prevalent among the troops in the Isle of Wight, of the several matters connected with the treatment of the sick and the local situation of the barracks and hospitals, and as reflecting much credit on the very respectable professional gentlemen employed on this special service.

His Royal Highness conceives the unanimous opinion

of

( )

of the Board to have exculpated Dr. Jackson from all ' improper practice in the treatment of diseases, and in the care of the sick, and is gratified, in seeing that an oppor¬ tunity has been given to that most zealous officer, of proving his fitness for the important situation in which he is placed. In making known to you these His Royal Highness’s gracious sentiments, I am at the same time desired to request, that Dr. Jackson’s attention may be particularly directed to the observance of what is pointed out in the report relative to the scale of full diet in the hospitals under his charge, and I shall take care to in¬ struct the barrack master general to proceed without de¬ lay in taking such measures as may be necessary for reme¬ dying the several inconvenieiicies and defects of the hos¬ pitals and grounds contiguous, in conformity to the sug¬ gestions contained in the report ; to the accomplishment of which you will be pleased to give every requisite assistance. The Commander in Chief has further, although with regret, declared his opinion, that the physician and surgeon ge¬ neral were not grounded in their representations regarding the hospitals in the Isle of Wight, and that, instead of having recourse to inferior officers who had served under Dr. Jackson for their opinion as to his practice and mode of treating the sick, it was their duty to have satis¬ fied themselves on those points from their own personal observation ; and it has been signified to the whole of the army Medical Board, to be his Royal Highness’s express desire that, on all future occasions of extraordinary mor¬ tality in the hospitals at home, or in cases where there may be ground to imagine that full justice is not done to the sick, they shall without delay repair to the places where such circumstances may be thought to exist, in order to examine personally into the causes of the unusual

mortality

( 33 )

mortality or sickness, to correct abuses, and to give ad¬ vice where it shall seem to be necessary.

I have, &c. &c.

(Signed) C. YORKE.

JWajor General Hezcett,

fyc. S)C . fyc.

Isle of Wight .

Such is the expression of the Commander in Chiefs sentiments on this enquiry. I cannot admit the existence of any thing so injurious to His Royal Highness’s con¬ sistency as to suppose that I was superseded from medical duty in consequence of the enquiry ; for, after perusing the report of the special Board, His Royal Highness expressed his complete satisfaction and testified his ap¬ probation in pointed terms, reprimanding yourself and the physician general in language so severe that, had not the sweets of power been stronger with you than the sen¬ timent of honour, you could not have remained in office. It is notwithstanding true as you state that I was su¬ perseded from physician’s duty on the 3d of February, and, as such, it is true that I desired to resign the entire appointment at the depot, though the office was reduced to a sinecure, and yet continued to bring its emolu¬ ment. You know the cause through which the super- session was effected better than I do ; but it is plain it was not in consequence of the enquiry ; and here I must inform you, if you do not already know it, that I re¬ quested to be exempted from official communication with yourself, who were the corresponding member of the Board. I thought then, (and I cannot yet think other¬ wise,) that you acted insidiously, and, in my opinion, so dishonourably in the transactions which related to the depot hospitals that, rather than hold official intercourse

D with

( 34 )

with you, I should have given up the best appointment in the gift of the crown. Such desire of exemption was perhaps deemed insubordinate : it was not admitted, and whether through this, or through any other cause of calumny, you and the physician general obtained authority to sanction the order that I should cease to act as physician at the army depot, I do not pretend to know. If you gained one point, and it was probably conceded without the consequence of being foreseen, you were aware that your purpose was accomplished. You knew perhaps that I had more pride than wisdom, that is, that preferring the opinion of honour to the actual receipt of pay, I would not remain in the public service with any the slightest mark of degradation attaching to my character.— Having premised this much, I shall now give a detailed statement of the charges made by you against my professional proceed¬ ing, with their special refutation supported by evidence ; so that the public may see, and, seeing clearly, may judge truly whether I was superseded on good grounds or not.

The first charge is unprecedented mortality and this

we shall first examine. You observe that the special

Board , with my help found various causes of disease and

mortality at the Isle of Wight , though they were nearly

such as applied to all general and regimental hospitals

in Great Britain , in which no similar mortality had

occurred. You said on the 10th of December, 1801,

that by far the greater proportion of patients in the

general hospitals is of a very different description from

those formerly at Chatham , and now in the Isle of

Wight . You now appear to have changed your opinion, & 1 1 r _ ~ because the change suits your purpose. The causes ot

the prevailing sickness are explained in General Hewetts

letter, and the forms of that sickness are described in

the report of the special Board. These authorities will

be

( 35 ;

be deemed to be of more authenticity than that of yourself and the physician general ; for, as neither of you ever were at the army depot in the Isle of Wight, you never saw the diseases which prevailed in the hospital at that place, and you thus could not, as you yourselves confess in your letter of the 28th of December, accurately judge the case. You likewise add that in regard to the hospital at Chatham , if the mortality under Dr. Mitchell arid Dr. Rogerson in the year 1799 and 1800, had been compared with that under me in 1801, the result would have been as two to one in favour of the former As I do not at present possess the hospital returns of Chatham for the period stated, I do not know how far your assertion is correct or otherwise. You however know that the ge- ueral hospital returns, prior to the 1st of March 1801, presented no data through which any one could form a correct opinion of effect. They marked no specified discrimination of diseases ; consequently no just estimate could be formed of the success or want of success of practice by the inspection of the returns of the early period. In the year 1799 and 1800, itched men, punished men, and invalids waiting for discharge, were borne upon the hospital list. If a thousand persons were admitted into the hospital as infected with itch in the course of one year, not one of them would be expected to die ; yet, as they stand in the list of dismissions, the physician as¬ sumes credit for cures in the aggregate list of diseases on their account. In the year 1801, no itched men were admitted upon the hospital books, not even punished men, or mere invalids waiting for discharge ; consequently there was no one on the list who was not actually ill. This would of itself produce a very considerable effect at a depot of recruits and invalids ; for recruits, as you know, are often itched, and invalids, as those know' who

D £ have

( 36 )

have been at the depbt, are often detained for some length of time before their accounts can be settled and their discharge obtained. But, besides, what I have now men¬ tioned as augmenting number without increasing dan¬ ger, small-pox and measles were epidemic to a consider¬ able extent during this period, and every man of expe¬ rience knows that the dangers of small-pox and measles in a crowded garrison are great. Inflammation of the lungs, or pneumonic fever also prevailed for some months ; and pneumonia is known to be a fatal disease where its first days are neglected ; and this was sometimes the case from the dispersion of the depot subjects, or the manner in which the recruits were conveyed to the garrison. These circumstances which I have nowr stated could not fail to produce a difference in effect ; but I cannot pre¬ tend to estimate what it was as I have not an oppor¬ tunity of consulting the detailed returns. I shall there¬ fore content myself with exhibiting a view of the hos¬ pital at the Isle of Wight, as it is against that hospital only that your charges can be supposed to lie ; for you yourself individually in presence of General Hewett, and the Board, in its collective capacity, by its letter of the 4th of July given above, absolved me from all suspicion of treating the sick improperly at Chatham.

You remark that the mortality at the Isle of Wight encreased beyond all example, soon after my arrival there , viz . from four , which was the number of deaths in August , to nine in September , thirteen in October , twenty-seven in November, and thirty-nine in December. Had you been disposed to carry on the climax, which in fair justice you ought to have done, you would have added fifty in January, when the care of the sick was in the hands of regular physicians. But that you may see the real state of the case, and that the public may judge it,

I shall

( 37 )

1 shall place before you and them an abstract view of the cures or dismissions in every four weeks, with the deaths and relative proportion of deaths in each.

Cures or Propor-

Dismissions.

Deaths.

tions.

July

85

3

1 in

28

Aug.

294

3

1

98

Sept.

334

13

1

25

Oi r.

225

18

1

13

Nov.

286

26

1

li

Dec.

423

48

1

9

(5 weeks)

Total proportion of deaths during the above period one in fifteen.

Cures or Proper

Dismissions. Deaths, tions.

Jan.

180

50

1 in

Feb.

165

16

1

10

March

151

4

1

39

April

108

6

1

18

Total proportion of deaths during the above period, when the medical care of the sick was in the hands of regular physicians, one in eight. *

It may be seen by the hospital returns which were published in 1 803, and which I hold to be authentic till they be proved to be otherwise, that the sickness de¬ creased in January, and that measles, the most mortal disease at the depot, soon disappeared entirely. The accommodation in barracks was now also improved, for

* It is proper to observe in this place that, on the 1st of January 1802, there were 14 persons in the hospital, who, according to my own calcu¬ lation, I did not expect to recover. If this number be deducted from the deaths which happened in the first four weeks of January, the proportion of deaths in that month is as one in five ; if it be added to the month of December, it is as one in seven the balance is still in favour of the former period without assuming credit for 50 or 60 convalescents, which is a fair claim, and which would raise the proportion in the one to eight, and sink it in the other to three. Upon the whole, the proportion of deaths with the deduction in the latter case, and without credit assumed in the former for those who had passed the dangers of the disease, stands thus, viz. as l in 9 in one, and as 1 in 13 in the other,

D 3

room

( 38 )

room was left for alterations to take place in consequence of the customary embarkation of troops for India. The hospital likewise soon became equal to its purposes by the diminished number of the sick, so that every case which required hospital treatment, was received into hos¬ pital in the latter period ; while, in the former, those cases only could be received which threatened to be dangerous, and still the wards were crowded. There was for some time not fewer than 600 persons on the sick list at the depot, and there was not proper accommodation for half the number : hence when I look back on all the difficulties with which I was surrounded, I have satisfaction in see¬ ing that the loss was not greater than it was ; and here I owe a gratitude to those who acted with me, for they assisted me zealously.

That which I have now stated, and which I hold to be correct, shews how the case stands generally ; but, as you seem to allude to my extraordinary and violent me¬ thod of treating the sick, more especially I presume such as stand in the febrile class, I beg leave to draw your attention to this point, and I do this more particularly as the special Board, appointed to enquire into my practice at the Isle of Wight, mentioned a fact which might be deemed grounds for making a comparison, as to effect, on this part of the subject. It is stated in a note, subjoined to that report, that mortality from fever in the hospital at Chatham, during a period of six months in the year 1794, bore the proportion of one in ten ; that, in the last months of the year 1801, w hen the mortality w7as as you Say, unprecedented, it was one in eleven. This is true in itself ; but, as we have it in our power, it is fit that we compare effect in the hospital at Chatham w ith itself, and in the Isle of Wight with itself also, and that we

make

( 39 )

make the period of time as nearly equal as we can in all, for, as even the most ignorant of us know, there is often more mortality in the same hospital in one month than in four others put together. If this be admitted, and it is perfectly fair that it should, I proceed to observe that, from the 1st of March 1801 to the 10th of July following, while the depot remained at Chatham, the mortality from fever stands as one in thirty-two nearly. And further that, when the same depot was established in the Isle of Wight, it stands, from the 18th of July to the 31st of December, as one in twenty-three ; or as one in twenty by adding to the list of dead five others who were in desperate circumstances on the 31st, and w ho actually died in the course of a few days. From the 1st of January, 1802, when, as you know the medical charge of the sick was in other hands, it stands as one in six in the returns ; or deducting the five alluded to, as one in seven.

It is with extreme reluctance, Sir, that I descend to such comparison ; but as you have forced me to it, it is due to truth that I make it fairly. There is in fact a difference ; but it is not where you place it. The case is mow at issue ; and if you do not disprove, by con¬ fronted evidence, the statement which I have here made, you stand convicted, together with the physician general, of endeavouring in 1801 to impose a falsehood on the Commander in Chief ; which you now endeavour to im¬ pose upon the public for a purpose of mere calumny, as it has nothing to do with your justification in the view of the commissioners. *

The

* The special Board, appointed to enquire into the management of the depot hospital in the year 1801, having observed, in a post¬ script which they added to their report published in the year 1808, that the statements which I exhibit of the sick returns do not fur-

n 4 nish

( 40 )

The next point in your charge, viz. frequent relapse, cannot be brought to so clear a decision as the preced¬ ing ;

nish a fair comparison of the fact, I thought it necessary to address the following letter to that Board, w'hich the public will, I trust, consider as a full explanation of the case.

London , No. 3, Teuton Square , July 28, 1808.

Gentlemen,

I HAVE received a copy of your report, and I observe with pain that you impute to me want of candour in the use which I made of the statement given by you of the mortality at Chatham hospital, under the management of Dr. Mitchell in the year 1794. I referred to that return, because you stated a point of fact on its authority, and I did not conceive that there was any thing unfair or improper in the manner in which I presented it. You will admit yourselves that, if comparison be instituted, (and I was forced to comparison) we must endeavour to make the condi¬ tions equal, as far as we can. We therefore naturally refer to results in hospitals which were established at the same place, and which received subjects of the same description. We also endea¬ vour to form opinion of results during an equal, or nearly equal portion of time, and, if possible, during the same season of the year. This is plain; and for this reason I placed Chatham against Chatham ; and, as six months in the year 1794 was the period no¬ ticed by you, four and a half, that is, from the 1st of March 1801, to the 10th of July following, when the depot was removed to the Isle of Wight, was the period which I set against it. I did not however select it as a healthy one, but as one that furnished a dis¬ tinct view of an effect. You know yourselves that, prior to the 1st of March, 1801, there was no specification of character among acute diseases in the general hospital returns; consequently, no just estimate of effect could be formed from their inspection. I con¬ structed a return for Chathaqi hospital, which I adopted an the 1st of March, 1801 ; and, for that reason, I only refqr to the hospital returns posterior to that date.

The period of six months in 1794, to which you allude, was, you

observe,

( 41 )

mg; for there is no column in the return for the insertion of the number of those who relapse, after a certain pro¬ gress

observe, a period of unusual sickness and mortality; and you seem to infer that the period of four months and a half in 1801, was not unhealthy. I cannot pretend to judge of the difference, for I do not know the character of the sickness that prevailed at Chat¬ ham in 1794 otherwise than by what you say of it. I may how¬ ever remark that we rarely see an epidemic sickness exceed three months in duration, without change or abatement; and unless the sickness at Chatham in 1794 arose from infection produced byaccu- mulation of troops, (and that applied to the garrison in 1801 as strongly as it did in 1794,) I cannot suppose, according to the usual course of epidemics, that the whole period was unhealthy. But be this as it may, the returns published by me in 1803, shew that small pox, measles, and pneumonia, or inflammation of the lungs were epidemic in the period you deem not unhealthy; and, as you may perceive hy the same returns that 1452 persons, out of about 2000 or 2500 soldiers who belonged to the depot, passed through the hos¬ pital in four months and a half, and that 635 of these stand under the head of continued or proper fever, while there are 875 upon the whole in the febrile class, you will not, I conclude after this information, maintain that the troops in garrison were healthy.

You observe further that I assumed another period of hospital returns at the Isle of Wight, of which much the greater part was healthy, viz. from July to December. The fact is this. I presented the returns of the hospital from the time it was established in the Isle of Wight, to the time that I ceased to act as physician; and I gave the proportion of deaths in the whole period not in the pe¬ riod merely, when the disease was most fatal, as seems to have been done in your note. This is fair ; for you know, as well as I do, that it sometimes happens that more persons die in the same hospital in one month than in four others : And, if six months be taken as a period of comparison in one case, the same, or nearly the same ought to be taken in the other. You say much the greater part of the period was healthy; but, if you inspect the returns, you will observe that, though there was no great mortality till the month of November, fhere was great sickness in October: And, if 1677 persons, out of

about

( 42 )

gress in recovery. The fact could only be known and judged by those who were on the spot; and, as you

yourself

about 3000 or 3500 troops, passed through the hospital in five months and a half, while serious cases only were admit ed, (for there was want of room) it cannot well be said that the g. had even been generally healthy. Of these 1677 hospio 775 were fevers properly so called, 1222 stand in the febrile

The hospital returns, for the period from the 1st of Ja’

1802 to the 30th of April following, are also placed under view the publication alluded to; and, as you see by the returns that me admissions into hospital increased in October, so you see bv the same returns that they decreased after the first week in January. I gave the detail of the returns as long as I had any knowledge of the state of the hospital ; and I gave the proportion of deaths in the whole period. In this period, viz. four months, 604 persons only passed through the hospital ; of whom 152 stand in the column of proper fever, 324 in the class of acute disease. You see then that I have not, as you seem to infer, formed a comparison upon periods which are not similar as to health. For, though I do not know the state of health at Chatham in 1794, I knew it at the Isle of Wight till the end of April, and you see plainly that there was less sickness in February, March, and April, than there had been for some time at the depot. The cause is obvious; the garrison was thin, for the war was suspended; consequently the influx of recruits wras diminished.

You infer further that I form comparisons not upon the same disorders. I am sorry I may appear to have done so ; but I was led to the mistake by your own report; for I believed that you had applied the term fever, in Dr. Mitchell’s returns, to that form of disease usually so called by medical writers. I did not then know that it included small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, inflammation of the lungs, &c. If comparisons be made on such general grounds, there cannot be any thing precise in the result, for every varied form of disease has some difference in the ordinary proportion of its mortality. I shall however submit the case to your consideration even under this view. At Chatham, in a period of six months in the year 1794, the mortality from fever, comprehending I presume

all

( 43 )

yourself were only once at Chatham, and that for a few hours; and, as neither yourself nor the physician-general

were

all forms of acute disease, was one in ten, as stated in the note to your report. At Chatham, during four months and a half of the year 1801, the mortality, including all forms of acute disease as low in the return as dysentery, was one in nineteen. At the Isle of Wight, from July to December 1801, the mortality, including all forms of acute disease, was one in fourteen nearly. At the Isle of Wight, from the 1st of January 1802, to the 30th of April follow¬ ing, the number of deaths, including the same forms as the pre¬ ceding, was in the proportion of one in four and three quarters. It stands so on the face of the return ; but as there were twelve per¬ sons, in hospital on the 1st of January in the febrile class, who were likely to die, and who actually did die, I deduct these from the mortality in the latter period and add them to that in the preceding. The number of deaths stands then with the addition in one case, as one in twelve; and with the deduction in the other, as one in six: Such is the comparison according to your own rule I hope you will find it correct.

I may not perhaps, Gentlemen, conceive your meaning aright ; but the language in the conclusion added to your report seems to imply that the returns alluded to, or the statements I have made tend to mask the real state Of the case, and to mislead the opinion of the public. If this be your meaning, I must take the liberty of saying that, whatever respect I ought to have for your character as a Board, and whatever esteem I may possess for you as individuals, I cannot permit myself to submit to it. I placed the returns before the public as a document for the purpose of vindicating my pro¬ fessional character from v the unfounded and injurious aspersions that had been cast upon it by the physician general and surgeon general of the army, aspersions, which were propagated widely by their emissaries, and which were not contradicted by your report as it was not made public. I was, or had been a public servant, and I could not, in the opinion of my friends, avoid doing what I did. If 1 have done it inaccurately, I am culpable; if correctly, I have done no more than acquit myself of my duty. I am sorry that, in doing this, I should have seemed to you to make an im¬ proper

( 44 )

were once at the depot in the Isle of AVight during the period alluded to, your opinion on this head can only be regarded as the voice of persons whom you had em¬ ployed, or influenced to speak as you desired. Your agents, in this case, were Dr. Maclaurin, Mr. .Andrews, and Dr. Morrison. I might perhaps say, and it would not be difficult to prove, that these persons were not well acquainted with the state of the hospital, or the garrison at Chatham ; but, as they gave their opinion, not on the fact which they actually saw, but presumptively on a consequence which they imagined might happen, viz. that full diet would be the means of preventing relapse, they betray such ignorance of the laws of animal economy that their testimony, if it departs from the positive and demonstrated fact, can obtain no credit. The physician- general, whom we must suppose to be a most learned and experienced physician, ought not to have suffered this misinformation to pass undetected. It nowr recurs upon himself, and the promulgation of it may shake his professsional credit; for, even the most illiterate of the vulgar know that a full allowance of food is a frequent cause of relapse; and hence every wise and considerate physician, both of ancient and modern times, enjoins a measured diet, even a spare one, or such as is called ab¬ stemious for persons recovering from acute disease. I shall therefore, say no more on this head, but that the chiefs of the medical department of the army were very incautious, in committing their official judgment to the direction of Dr. Maclaurin, and Dr. Morrison’s theoretic

proper use of informations contained in your report; I was indeed wrong to touch the report without your permission, and the more so, as it was not necessary, the decision of the Commander in Chief thereon, which was communicated to me officially, being suffi¬ cient for my purpose, &c. &c.

cal

( 45 )

cal opinions, and that they proved themselves to be very ignorant of the laws which govern the animal system in health and in disease, when they admitted this position among the number of their charges, as resting on the grounds stated.

The next clause, viz. tedious recovery , is easily ascer¬ tained. The date of admission into the hospital, of dis¬ mission to the barracks for duty, or of death, when that takes place, is correctly registered at the army depot. This affords means of obtaining a positive testimony of the duration of every disease in hospital which exceeds a duration of three days. Jt was necessary that I should have knowledge of it ; I therefore requested that an ab¬ stract might be made for me from the stoppage ac¬ count, which is in possession of the paymaster : and the following is the result, viz. average duration from the 25th July to the 13th December 1800, at Chatham, prior to my management 34 days; from the 1st March to the 10th June, at the same place, under my management, 20 days; from the 18th July to the 31st December, at the Isle of Wight, under my management, 23 days; from the 1st January 1802, to the 30th April, also at the Isle of Wight, but under other management, 45 days. This abstract was made by one of the clerks, and I be¬ lieve made faithfully: it refutes the charge completely; and it is hereby proved that you spoke at random, or that you fabricated a report, with the assistance of Dr. Maclaurin and Dr. Morrison, in the view of effecting a malicious purpose; for the statement departs so far from the truth that the error cannot be supposed to have arisen in consequence of official enquiry.

The debilitated state of the patients forms another point in your accusation, and you have made it with equal rashness and confidence as you made the others :

Neither

( 4 6 )

Neither yourself, nor the physician general could be sup¬ posed to have any knowledge of it from your own obser¬ vation; for neither of you ever saw the soldiers of the army depot. It is a point which can only be judged by those who inspect and examine; and, as it can be seen and judged by others besides men of the medical profes¬ sion, you ought to have been particularly well assured of the ability and integrity of those on whose judgment you relied on a question so important to yourself as well as the public ; for, if you were led into error, you might probably be brought into disgrace. Dr. Maclaurin, Dr. Morrison and Mr. Andrew's are your guides and authorities on this head; and there were perhaps no three persons at¬ tached to Chatham hospital who knew less of the garri¬ son than they did. General Hewett’s letter to Sir J. M. Hayes, inserted above, will do much more than refute this article of your charge ; but, that I might give the re¬ futation a form still more precise, I called for a certifi¬ cate from Lieutenant Jarvis, as he was then adjutant at the depot, and as such was the person to whom the re¬ covered men were delivered when they were dismissed from hospital. I now transcribe it for your information : it is of some authority, as it is the certificate of a per¬ son wdio knows what he says, and who speaks without prepossession.

(Copy.)

CERTIFICATE.

Army Depot , 1 6th Feb. 1805,

I hereby certify that, from the time Dr. Jackson came to be head of the military hospital at Chatham, and all the time he remained at the army de¬ pot, according to the best of my knowledge, the sick he

dismissed

dismissed from the hospital, to do their duty, were, to all appearance, in as good a state of health, and as strong as they usually came out of hospital both before and after Dr. Jackson’s having the depot.

(Signed) GEO. JARVIS,

Lieut, and Adjutant.

Such is the refutation of the charges which the physi¬ cian-general and yourself brought against me in the year 1801. It appears to myself to be demonstrative, and I believe it will appear in the same light to every person who admits the documents on which it rests to be authen¬ tic. It belongs to you and the physician-general to prove that they are otherwise ; but, in attempting to do this, you must bear in mind that evidence must be confronted : the subterfuges and loose opinions by which you pre¬ tend that you have refuted some other of my statements will not here avail ; they will neither satisfy me, nor will they, I presume, gain credit with the public.

As I hold my justification to be complete, I should leave the matter as it now stands if you were a private individual; but, as you and the physician-general are chiefs in the medical department of the army, and, as the medical department is a very extensive one, not an unimportant one, and often a complicated one, I consider it to be a duty which I owe to the public to investigate and expose the character of the means which you employed to effect your purposes on this occasion; for it is not improbable but that you may again employ similar ones, on other occasions, to effect other injurious purposes to individuals, and thus to occasion detriment to his Ma¬ jesty’s service. Have you not procured opinions to effect a premeditated purpose, and procured them, after an un¬ usual manner, from persons who may be supposed to have

been

I

( 48 )

been under influence ? I shall state a few particulars of the history of your agents : their testimony, as you see, has been refuted by evidence that must be held to be de¬ cisive; they notwithstanding appear to have received their rewards.

I pass over Dr. Maclaurin with little remark, although he was principal in your cause. The reason is ob¬ vious : he is not living; I therefore spare him, and you would yourself perhaps have acted kindly towards his me¬ mory, if you had not exposed his posthumous works to the public eye. Your second, Mr. Andrews, a practising surgeon in Rochester, had been employed for some time at Chatham hospital as an acting mate. I placed him, soon after my arrival at Chatham, in the medical charge of the prison ship and the invalids at Up-Nore Castle, which was a day duty only; for I had soon oc¬ casion to witness his unfitness to administer to the sick in the evenings. Hence, as he did no fegular duty in the hospital from the date of that appointment, which was early in 1801, his means of knowing the state of the sick of the garrison could not be supposed to be the best. He was, notwithstanding, invited by the physician-gene¬ ral and yourself, to give his testimony with regard to the economy of that hospital, and the effects of that economy upon the sick ; and, as his opinion seems to be such as had been solicited, he appears to have been rewarded for his opinion, for he was made hospital-mate for Chatham new hospital, in 1803, at a time when it had not received any patients, and when there was not any prospect of its soon receiving any. How this will be explained I know not; but it is presumed that the Lords of the Treasury when they know the fact, (and there are probably many analogous,) will call upon the Medical Board to shew, by what authority, a practising surgeon is appointed acting-

hospital-

h-ospital-mate to a King’s hospital which has no patients ; or to shew under what form of certificate he receives, or can receive acting pay, when no act is done, or to be done by him*

The other, Dr. Morrison, who was a regular mate;

/v .

was solely attached to the duty of the hospital, and acted under the apothecary who had care of the convalescents. Dr. Morrison was a good operating surgeon, a good ana- tomist and dissector, and he also had the diploma of physician ; but these specious qualifications did not pre¬ serve him from leading the Board into error. He was ordered to Egypt (I believe in April), under an exigence of service. He refused to obey, and was of course struck off the list of hospital mates at Chatham. In the month of December he was called to town, consulted by the physician-general and yourself, and, after having been as I should suppose instructed in the case, was invited to add a written testimony in support of the accusation which you gave in on the tenth of that month. The reduction of the scale of diet was the ground on which you appear to have built your hopes of success in establishing censure; and Dr. Morrison, as a disciple of Dr. Brown, was ready to support you on this point from a principle of theory* But, as my table of diet was on written record, there was no occasion for Dr. Morrison’s authentication, and, as the effects which he ascribed to it and to the medical treatment, are proved by the demonstrative evidence of the pay-list and adjutant’s certificate to be unfounded, the Dr/s tes¬ timony recoils upon himself. Dr. Morrison had been dis¬ missed from the list of hospital mates, as refusing service in Egypt. Mr. Keate offered to reinstate him if I would recommend* This I declined, because I did not value a man who was disposed to refuse service on account of its difficulties and dangers. The Dr. was thus disappointed,

and

E

and perhaps chagrined. His interview with the physician- general and yourself, some time afterwards, appears how^ ever to have smoothed all the difficulties; for he was re¬ placed, without my recommendation, and soon after ap¬ pointed assistant surgeon to the 10th Light Dragoons, the highest rank he could have expected to attain, if, instead of refusing service, he had served well and willingly throughout.

The last of your authorities is Mr. Stratford, a person, who will, in my opinion, bring you into difficulty, and cover you with disgrace. You style him hospital-mate; but I do not believe that, according to your own definition, you will be able to give him a claim to that denomination. You say that a candidate must evince a certain portion of medical knowledge before he can obtain the appoint¬ ment of hospital mate ; and this of course must be evinced in trial by verbal examination, or actual experi¬ ment in practice. Now you know, as well as I do, that Mr. Stratford had not passed any examination while at Chatham hospital, and that he was not then qualified to pass any, so that he could not be constituted regular hospital- mate. I found Mr. Stratford at Chatham in December; or he came there soon after, I do not recollect which. He had received little or no professional education ; but he appeared to be diligent, and desirous to learn. He was employed to superintend the care of the itched men, and he also did occasional duty in the surgical wards ; but he did not enter the south hospital, on duty, where subjects under acute disease were principally disposed. It is however probable that he was sometimes employed by Mr. Powell, Mr. Graham, or Mr. Eggleton, to assist in bleeding, or in administering medicines, for those per¬ sons who had been sent from the inspection-room to the surgery to submit to the necessary treatment, and thence

return

( 51 )

return to their apartments in the barracks. This duty of administration was committed to Mr. Powell, occasionally to Mr. Eggleton, but principally to Mr. Graham, who were responsible hospital assistants. What Mr. Stratford did in this case must have thus been done in aid to others ; and it appears, by his own confession, to have been so bunglingJy done that it is not reasonable to suppose he would be often called upon to do it.

What I have now stated was the extent of Mr. Strat¬ ford’s duty at Chatham hospital, as may be authenticated by every person who served at that hospital. You recol¬ lect, Sir, I presume, that an order was given early in 1801, (I do not remember the precise date), that no per¬ sons should be employed at the King’s hospitals who were not qualified, that is, who had not passed the cus¬ tomary examinations required of hospital-mates. Mr. Stratford wTas not qualified; and he in consequence was sent to London for the purpose of complying with the order. He returned again, but he returned without no¬ tification of having been tried and passed; and, in obe¬ dience to the order, I did not afterwards admit him to do duty in the hospital, even to superintend the care of the itched men. He still however remained at Chatham, though he was not returned in the hospital list during the time I remained at that place. Between forty and fifty persons, principally belonging to troops in the garrison, were left at Chatham hospital when the depot was trans¬ ferred to the Isle of Wight. l)r. Maclaurin took charge of them ; and Mr. Stratford was noticed soon after as one of his mates. As Mr. Stratford must have been intro¬ duced into the hospital without qualification, you may perhaps find it difficult to shew grounds for setting aside the Commander in Chief’s order on his account, as there certainly at this time existed no pressing necessity to jus-

E 2 tify

( 52 )

tlfy you in dispensing with a general rule of the service j for I left only between forty and fifty persons on the sick list ; and there were two mates to administer for them— Andrews and Congreve. Mr. Stratford was thus brought into the hospital irregularly, and for a purpose, not from a necessity; and if it should further appear, that he re¬ ceived pay during the time he did no duty, and when he was not returned in the hospital list, (and the books of the hospital-agent may be called for to shew whether this is or is not the fact), it is plain that he must have re ceived it without a ticket of ostensible service $ and, in such case, the Medical Board may be supposed to have exceeded its authority, in bestowing public money with¬ out value or certificate of work actually done by an act¬ ing mate, that is, by a person not bearing appointment by warrant or commission.

It may seem invidious that I should notice matters of so mean a nature as that which I have now mentioned ; but, in mean transactions, even though they be public ones, we can¬ not expect to find employed other than mean instruments. Besides the suspicion that Mr. Stratford received hospital mate’s pay for a period when he did no duty ; consequently when he could obtain no certificate of service, and when he had no qualification entitling him to be admitted into the list of hospital mates, he appears also to have en¬ gaged Mr. Keate’s support and protection for a trans¬ action which is not defensible in itself, and which is not usual in the army. Mr. Stratford had been employed while receiving hospital mate’s pay to prepare medicines for a sick officer. This he did under the direction of Mr. Warren, the depot surgeon : he visited the officer occasionally, probably attended him assiduously; and he subsequently in August, after tire depot was removed to the Isle of Wight, demanded ten guineas as compensa¬ tion

lion for attendance and price of medicines. The officer,, who considered Mr. Stratford as hospital mate, and the me- dicines which he received from him as principally supplied from the King’s stores, wrote to Dr. Borland requesting to know what he was to do in the case. Dr. Borland being absent, I opened the letter and stated the transac¬ tion to Mr. Keate, expressing my opinion at the same time in strong terms of reprobation of Mr. Stratford’s conduct. The term which I applied to him raised his indignation and increased his irritation so much that, for¬ getting decency and regard for truth, he forged calum¬ nies and poured them forth so abundantly that he was graciously received by the Medical Board, as he promised to be a fit instrument for the purpose which the Board then meditated to bring forward.* The absurdity of the

assertions

* Mr. Stratford stood for some time in the list of hospital mates at Chatham hospital. I was stiled head of this hospital, and I held it to be my duty that no person should be suffered to follow practices, such as that I have noticed, and which was imputed to Stratford at an establishment of which I was chief. I therefore, stating the trans¬ action td Mr. Keate, and certainly offended that the Medical Department of the army should be so disgraced, applied the name of vagabond to Stratford, and observed that it was strange that he, (whom I knew not to be qualified) should be employed at the King's hospital. This, being communicated to Mr. Stratford, pro¬ duced a long justification from himself, with a letter of high enco¬ mium from Dr. Maclaurin and a solicitation of the surgeon gene¬ ral's protection, accompanied by a certificate from an apothecary at Rochester, stating that Mr. Stratford had purchased medicines at his shop, or words to that effect, for the use of the sick officer alluded to. These papers having been submitted to the Commander in Chief through Mr. Keate, His Royal Highness signified his surprize that I should have expressed myself in the manner I did with regard to Mr, Stratford, without understanding the cir¬ cumstances of the case. In consequence of this communication I

e 3 transmitted

( 54 )

assertions did not seem to diminish their credit with the physician general and surgeon general of the forces. The surgeon general thus gives an extract from his letter, stat¬ ing, that when the men were admitted into the hospital, they were conducted to a wash-house, containing the warm and cold bath, they were instantly bled to the quantity of from 16 to 20 ounces zoithout consulting the state of the constitution, symptoms of disease, age, or infirmity ; they were, on reviving from fainting, which generally occurred in consequence of the loss of so much blood, plunged into a warm bath, in numbers from 4 to 6 toge¬ ther, and confined in by blankets fastened over the ma¬ chine till almost suffocated ; from hence they were dash¬ ed into cold baths and continued till apparently lifeless ; immediately after coming out of the cold bath, a strong emetic was administered which usually operated very severely, and they were carried to bed in this deplora-

transmitted the officer’s letter to the Ilorse Guards, accompanied with certificates from Mr. Warren, Mr. Graham and the head sur¬ gery man, testifying that Mr. Stratford was ordered to prepare medicines and to visit the officer alluded to by Mr. Warren, and that he actually did prepare the medicines so ordered in the King’s surgery. These papers being submitted to His Royal Highness, and the circumstances of the case being thereby understood, it was em¬ phatically expressed through Colonel Mathews, (who then officiated as military secretary), that the case was changed indeed from what it had been represented to be ; and further that the papers were ordered to be sent to the surgeon general for his information. The informa¬ tion might be supposed to imply some degree of reprimand of the surgeon general ; and he thus became united with Mr. Stratford in one common cause. Who forged the falsehoods and calumnies which appeared before the public consequent to this, I do not coi- rectly know; but Stratford was one of the principal agents who pio- pagated them through London in the following winter, and he exerted himself in this duty with great effect.

bh

( 55 )

lie state, not being able to walk , and a dose of eight grains of calomel and six of James s powder reeve given as a purge , which always occasioned spasms, with great debility, and a train of other distressing symptoms, for the relief of which they were bled and blistered from head to foot; they were bled a fourth and fifth time in the space of 50 hours , and, usually lost from 60 to 70 ounces of blood in that time.”

The practice here described is absurd and contradictory with itself. If your discernment, and the discernment of the physician-general could not detect its inconsistency, scarcely any other person of common sense and the smallest medical experience will be at a loss to discover its folly. It will hardly be credited that a person who has practised physic for near forty years, who has seen as much as most physicians in England, and who has written books on the subject of his profession, which are gene¬ rally regarded as accurate in matter of fact, should not have learned to discriminate one disease from another with so much skill as Mr. Stratford, who never walked an hospital, and who appeared not even to have then at¬ tended the reading of any course of medical lecture. But if you yourself, or any other of your friends, choose to ad¬ here to Stratford’s testimony on this point, you will find difficulty, I believe, in persuading even the most credu¬ lous to acquiesce in the following, viz. that six of his Ma¬ jesty’s sick soldiers were put at once into the same bathing tub, which the surgeon-general himself must know did not exceed six feet in length and three in width. This is a question of measurement, and no person will, I pre¬ sume, now that the dimensions are known, maintain that such a bathing tub was capable of containing even three. I have described, on various occasions, the manner in

e 4 which

( 56 )

which I conduct the alternate applications of warm and cold water to the surface of the febrile subject. I therefore need not add any thing in refutation of Strata ford’s statements on this head, farther than to observe, that the subsequent practice or mode of treatment, such as Stratford describes it, could not be supposed by any one to be the practice of a rational man, or that it would be cheerfully submitted to and thankfully acknowledged by the sick. Now it is known to be a truth by every per¬ son who did duty at the depot, whether military or me¬ dical, that the soldiers were uniformly thankful for the kindness with which they were treated when sick. There is thus a strong presumption that the statement, here made, bad no just foundation in fact. But if your discernment was not sufficiently acute to discover its foolishness and inconsistency ; yet, had you inspected the register of cases, or hospital books, you would have found out that it was positively false; and had you done this, you would have avoided the disgrace of being deceived ; if I am net to understand that the deception is your own, and intended to operate your own purpose on the ignorant and credulous, j

Mr. Stratford adds, in another paragraph, that twelve or fourteen persons were bled in a morning by him , and that he had often, been obliged to open six veins in one Subject, to get the requisite quantity. That twelve or fourteen persons were bled in the surgery in a morning, is very probable; for, there were a great number of per¬ sons thus treated and sent to their barracks as out pa¬ tients; but, though Mr. Stratford was probably employed sometimes to bleed, he must have only been so employed as assisting Mr. Powell, or Mr. Graham; consequently as acting under their eye. Nothing was allowed to de¬ pend on his judgment; for if true, according to his own

confession.

( 57 )

confession, that he had often to open six veins in one sub¬ ject to get the quantity of blood required, it is plain he was not qualified for the office ; and, if such was his in¬ expertness, I conclude he was not often called upon to execute even this simple operation.

Mr. Stratford further asserts , that more instances than one have occurred in his presence , where the men have expired in the act of bleeding, and these men he had as¬ sisted in opening for our information ; when the conse¬ quences of that treatment proved fatal , the chest was usually fall of water, and tendency to anasarca prevail¬ ed in the habit, and no other marks of disease could be. discovered. I may observe, in the first place, that the assertion here made disproves itself by its inconsistency as a medical fact. Persons who are at all acquainted with diseases, and with appearances on dissection after death, know perfectly well that effusion of water info the chest does not follow excessive bleeding; on the contrary, it is known that such effusions are ordinarily the conse¬ quences of inflammation, or other obstructions to circula¬ tion through the thoracic viscera; and that when they do take place, they are ordinarily ascribed to the want of bleed¬ ing, at least of bleeding to the proper extent -not to its ex¬ cess : Hence, as the assertion is false in itself, it is made not only in ignorance of, but contrary to the nature of things. The latter part of the paragraph, with regard to the appear¬ ances of anasarca supposed to be a consequence of this prac¬ tice, is disproved by reference to the hospital returns. From the 1st March to the 10th June (see Publication, 1803) there stand on the returns only seven cases of dropsy : of these one died. But, though the consequences here assigned do not belong to the effect of the means supposed to have been employed ; yet, if the fact itself had taken place, (of which my recollection or memorandums do not fur¬ nish

( 58 )

msh a single instance) Mr. Stratford could not be sup¬ posed to have known it from his own observation ; for no persons died in the surgery, and Mr. Stratford did no duty in the sick wards. I do not recollect to have seen him even once in the wards of the South hospital, so that 1 most consider his assertion of the fact of persons dying in the act of bleeding as an impudent falsehood ; and I hold it to be equally false that he was employed to open dead bodies. All the dissections were made in my own presence: many of them by Dr. Morrison; Strat¬ ford never acted; I do not know that he ever looked on.

There is another point which you state as being in evi¬ dence, and probably resting on the same authority, viz. that the blood has been suffered to run from the vein on the pavement , without any vessel to receive it, by which the quantity might be judged of. This is another as¬ sertion of yours which disproves itself by its absurdity. If you had said that the blood of the whole had been al¬ lowed to flow into the same bucket, some persons might have believed you; but, when you say it was allowed to flow upon the pavement, while there were an abundance of vessels at command to receive it, is what no man of common sense will credit; for, the removing of it after¬ wards would have given much more trouble to the ser¬ vants than the trouble of receiving it into vessels, had there even been nothing revolting in the appearance of a floor deluged with human blood.

As your charges, drawn from the informations of Dr. Maclaurin, Dr. Morrison, and Mr. Andrews, are refuted by evidence which I hold to be demonstrative ; viz. un¬ precedented mortality , by a comparison of returns at different periods ; frequent relapse , by total want of evi¬ dence of the fact, and inconsistency of the common oper¬ ation of the cause assigned with the fact itself ; tedious

recovery ,

( 59 )

recovery , by abstract from the stoppage account giving a di¬ rect contrary result, and debilitated state of the patients , disproved by General Hewett’s testimony, and the more di¬ rect certificate of Xieut. (now Captain) Jarvis, Adjutant at the army depdt in 1801 ; so Mr. Stratford’s evidence, no part of which you and the other members of the Board saw cause to distrust ,” but much of which is so absolutely irreconcileable with common sense as to be refuted by its own absurdity, would have been completely set aside by counter testimony, had you permitted the case to be tried before a military court: for there Mr. Stratford would have been confronted with Mr. Powell, Mr. Graham, and Mr. Eggleton, who were hospital mates at Chatham at the same time with Mr. Stratford, who had the charge of the surgery and that division of the hospital "where those patients to whom Mr. Stratford must be supposed to allude were disposed, and consequently treat¬ ed.* But to refute this charge, it was not even necessary to have recourse to such evidence; for the means placed within your own power, particularly the register of cases, are sufficient to shew that it was equally false as foolish. H ere however you have shewn, as on other occasions, that, though a servant placed in a situation of trust, you are not scrupulously devoted to the investigation of truth. Mr. Stratford, with your help I presume, for he had several interviews with you, forged clumsy and inconsistent ca¬ lumnies ; and you yourself now give them utterance, hoping to impose them as truth on the credulous public. In this instance, however, I believe you will not succeed; for the statement, notwithstanding all the aid you have given in dressing it up, has scarcely a semblance of probability for its support. It is inconsistent ; yet, if you do not esta-

* See Certificates at the end.

blish

( 60 )

blish its truth in open trial, you are sensible of the ground on which you stand ; and you must be sensible, that what¬ ever offices you may continue to hold, you cannot possess public confidence while suspicions are so much against your sincerity.

I cannot dismiss the subject without adverting to the ori¬ ginal paper as you call it, or prescription purloined from the hospital surgery, bearing date the 27 th of May.

Copy of the purloined Prescription.

South Hospital , May 27-

Regt.

51 6

John Bateman, -

fever,

V. S. W. & C. B.

Emetic,

73 6

Edward Lacey,

fever,

purging powder. V. S. W. & C. B.

Emetic.

76

Serjeant Frazer, -

fever,

Pneumonic tendency.

J

76 11

Samuel Hinch,

feverish,

V. S. W. & C. B.

Purging

powder, blister to neck. 73 9 Murdoch M‘Kever, cynanche tonsillaris. Purging powder,

lin. to the throat.

61 11. Charles Armstrong, feverish, V. S. Large purging pow¬ der, nasal.

19 11 Charles Moore, ^ fever, V.S. W. &. C. B. Emetic,

purging powder.

N. B. V. S. means bleeding. W. & C. B. warm and cold bathing .

The means by which you obtained this document, on which you place such dependence for proof of your as¬ sertions, must have been unfair ; as the act shews the pur¬ pose, which you and the other members of the Medical Board harboured in your minds at the time you professed candour and fair dealing. It seems incredible ; and in fact would not be believed by men of an upright and honor¬ able way of thinking, without the evidence which I now shew, that the physician general and surgeon general of

tht

( 61 )

tlie British Army, who had in their power to command all the books at Chatham hospital, should resort to the mean expedient of procuring, or receiving clandestinely a mutilated paper from an obscure individual, and that; they should treasure it up for a mischievous purpose at some after period. If this paper was before you soon after its date, and it is probable that it was for you were then taking your informations, it is strange that you should have so far committed yourself by the letter of disavowal of the 4th of July as you appear to have done. You have here, by reference to this paper, severely wounded the moral cha¬ racter of yourself and the physician general; and you per¬ fectly destroy the confidence which a medical officer might be supposed to place in the heads of the medical department of the army. No one, from henceforth, can believe himself in security w hen he executes his duty : for no one know s, but that those who are acting under his orders, are placed as spies upon his conduct by the mem¬ bers of the Board. With regard to myself there was no¬ thing to be concealed from a spy : the hospital was open to every one through the orderly mate, and I should have been glad that the physician general and yourself had ac¬ companied me in all my visits, so that you might have seen, in their full extent, all the operations, all the neglects and violences w hich were practised upon His Majesty’s sick soldiers. It is not therefore the informations with which a spy could furnish you that I regard ; it is the principle which authorises such act that I detest ; and by the exercise of which the higher powers will, I presume, see that you have compromised the respect which is, or ought to be due to the character of the chiefs of the medical department of the army. Having premised this remark on the principle, I shall now make a few observations on the paper itself,

which

( 62 )

which will prove that you yourself, and even the physician general, if he was privy to your views, know little or no- thingeof diseases, or of the best and most effectual manner of treating them. That you may understand the case rightly, I observe in the first place that 1 bleed, even largely, in the commencement of many forms of fever, and further that I do not prescribe the quantity in a pre¬ scription book. I attend when the operation is performed, and I direct that the arm be tied up when the effect for which I order the remedy is attained, but not before. When I ordered an hospital patient who presented himself in the inspection room to be bled, I met him again in the receiving room, saw him and watched him under the operation. Dr. Borland I believe generally did the same. I employ warm and cold bathing alternately in certain conditions of febrile disease; and, as I have fully explained on different occasions the view with which 1 do this and the manner of doing it, it is not necessary to say any more upon the subject. If you, and the physician general do not understand it, the fault is not mine: there are many who do ; and, if you were acquainted with the records of the medical art as you ought to be, you would not say that it is a singular, at least an injurious practice. Eme¬ tics and purgatives I employ in the early stages of fever, and even blisters on some occasions, especially after evacuation: so do many others who wish to restore health speedily, and I had no interest to induce me to protract the duration of the disease, for the attendance gave me trouble and brought me no gain. You say the use of the lancet was indiscriminate : the disease, as you see by the paper alluded to, was the same : the subjects were of the same class, and no one, except a person pre¬ sent, could say whether or not the practice was indis¬ criminate, that is, whether it was employed without con¬ sideration

( 63 )

sideration of circumstances or not. Bateman and Moore were treated precisely in the same manner, that is, bled, bathed, vomited and afterwards purged ; Lacey was bled, bathed and vomited; Hinch bled, bathed, purged, with a blister to the neck ; Armstrong bled, purged freely M‘Kever, not bled, a purge was given, with a liniment to the throat : the serjeant , I conclude, was sent to his ward to be again examined before any thing was ordered for him, as the case was probably doubtful. You thus see, Sir, that there was discrimina¬ tion; for the disease, though radically the same, was of different shades, or degrees of force : that the dis¬ crimination was right, is proved by the result, * but you appear to exhibit the prescriptions alluded to, with a view to make the impression on the- public mind, that the persons so treated suffered injury, perhaps died in consequence of the treatment. It behoved you, in con¬ sideration of your own character, to have ascertained the point of fact before you presented the case to the pub¬ lic in this form. You otherwise present a loose calumny, instead of a truth. If you had found the case upon en¬ quiry to be, as you would seem to insinuate it was, it would then have been your duty, or the duty of the phy¬ sician-general to have brought it forward in an open, manly, and serious manner. As you have therefore neg¬ lected to produce this necessary piece of information, which candour required, and which your official duty in a manner obliged you to produce, I have done it for you by applying to the pay-master at the army depot. The extract will not gratify yourself and the physician- general; but it wall convince the public of the malignant iniquity of your mind, and perhaps it may convince your

* See Extract of Letter from Mr. Knyvett, p. 64.

superiors

( 64 )

superiors that your endeavours were exerted to deceive them, not to inform them truly of the fact.

Extract of a Letter from Henry Knyvett, Esq. Chief District Pay-master , Isle of Wight.

Si it,

I have referred to the accounts of the late Colonel fiarker, and the result is as follows:

Regt.

51 John Bateman - In hospital from 30th May to 5th June,

1801. Embarked for India, 14th Fe¬ bruary, 1802.

T3 Edward Lacey - In hospital from 28th to 29th May, 1801.

Embarked, &c. &c.

76 Serjeant Frazer - No such man.

76 Samuel Hinch - In hospital from 30th May to 5th June,

1801. Marched to Portsmouth.

78 Murdoch M'Kever In hospital from 18th to 24th April, 1801,

and again from 30th May to 4th September. Went on furlough tO Scotland, and there discharged.

61 Charles Armstrong In hospital from 8th to 11th August,

1801. Embarked for India, 14th February, 1802.

19 Charles Moore - In hospital from 30th May to 5th June,

1801. Embarked for India, 9th June, 1802.

(Signed) H. KNYVETT.

N. B. The date of the paper is May 27th; but few of the patients appear on the hospital books till three days thereafter. This is explained by a knowledge of the regu¬ lation which was in force at the depot, viz. that a pa¬ tient did not enter upon the hospital books till the provi¬ sions he brought with him were consumed; and, as provi¬ sion!

( 65 )

sions were issued for troops in barracks for periods of three days, it happened in many cases that patients were ad¬ mitted, cured and dismissed from hospital without appear¬ ing on hospital books at all. This must have been the case with Serjeant Frazer and Charles Armstrong, in his first illness. It is worthy of remark that M‘Kever, the per¬ son who was not bled, had a tedious disease. He was left under the care of Hr. Maclaurin when the depot was transferred to the Isle of Wight, went to Scotland on fur¬ lough, and was there discharged, (I presume as not having recovered his health).

I have thus, Sir, noticed the principal circumstances which relate to the transactions which took place at the army depot in the year 1801 ; and, if you review them as they now stand, I am convinced that both yourself and the physician-general will feel compunction at your pro¬ ceedings, for they have no example among honorable men, and they could scarcely be credited to have pro¬ ceeded from men possessing official trust in the British nation. It was in your pow'er, and it was in fact com¬ prehended in your duty, to have ascertained your opinions by open means, and you were invited by myself so to do. You notwithstanding chose to employ spies or secret agents to disseminate calumnies; and you, I may say, suborned evidence to cover the forms of accusation. You know perfectly well that you tampered with different persons who had acted under my orders at Chatham hospital; and that you obtained written testimony from Dr. Mor¬ rison and Mr. Stratford, after you had an interview with them, I believe, at the Horse Guards. There is no power of sophistry that can acquit you from the charge of at¬ tempting to accomplish your purposes by unauthorised and illegal means; your defence must rest on the utility

V produced

( 66 )

produced by your irregular act ; but that utility must be proved before a competent tribunal, before you are ac¬ quitted of wicked design. I have adduced such evi¬ dence on this head, as, 1 doubt not will convince the public, and even yourself that, while your charges are totally unfounded in fact, no benefit would have resulted from the means you proposed to apply in remedy of the supposed evils. The charges were fabricated without evidence ; and they were fabricated so unskilfully that no one, who attends to the routine of cause and effect, can avoid discovering that many of them are absurd in their own nature and inconsistent with themselves ; while all of them are capable of being proved or refuted by evidence of which any person of common sense may judge.-— I have now stated the case, and I again repeat and insist that you are called upon, by the view in which 1 have put it, to substantiate proof in public trial of the points which you have alleged against my pro¬ fessional character. It you do not attempt it, you lie under the imputation of propagating premeditated ca¬ lumnies, and of endeavouring to give official covering to falsehoods which are injurious to me, and which may be detrimental to the public service.

There is another point connected with this subject which I cannot pass without notice, but the reprehension of which I must leave to higher powers. You preferred an accusation against me in 1801, on account ot the system of management introduced by me mto the hospitals at the army depot. TL li is was inquired mto, said to be un¬ founded, and you and the physician-general were repii- manded by the Commander in Chief as having acted con¬ trary to your duty, inasmuch as you preferred unground¬ ed charges, or took your informations to support your charges in an improper manner. You then bowed in

submission

( 67 )

submission to his Royal Highness’s decision and yon remained in office. You now, in the year 1808, give publicity to your refuted accusation ; and you do this for an obvious purpose of calumny, as it furnishes no justifi-

cation of your conduct in the view of the Commissioners

*

of Military Enquiry. It is, I believe, an acknowledged rule of the service that any one, who, in preferring ac- cusations, recurs to charges that have been already de- cided on, and particularly to charges which have been decided on by the Commander in Chief, is liable to be cashiered , as guilty of contumacy. This rule you have transgressed, and you have transgressed it without useful cause, that is, without shewing argument that the past decision wras wrong. You restate the charges with no other support than a letter of the 28th of January, 1802, by the deceased Dr. Maclaurin, which cannot be held as evidence, and the statements of Mr. Stratford, which you know to be false, and which you say the 'public may dis¬ believe, if it please. To restate charges which had been pronounced by the Commander in Chief to be un¬ founded ; and to do this without new and substantial evidence, or evidence which you pledge yourself to main¬ tain, seems to be so directly an insult to military authority, that it is difficult to suppose that -such an outrage should have proceeded from the surgeon-general of the army. If it escape punishment, we must conclude that the medical officers of the army are not under military con- troul ; that is, not comprehended within the regulations of the military code, or amenable to its law's.

I have now, Sir, nearly closed my account with you, sorry that it has run to such a length. I must however, before I finally dismiss the subject, take the liberty of observing that you do not say correctly, at page 29, that the physician general and yourself "never thought

v 2 proper

( 6 8 )

proper before to notice my publications” In making this assertion, you commit yourself to contradiction, you even compromise the name of Sir Lucas Pepys, who is phy¬ sician general of the army and president of the college of physicians; a person, who, standing in the* highest official station among physicians, necessarily attracts the public eye, and who must thus be supposed to be far removed from any thing like mean equivocation. Hence I am forced to conclude that you have not acted fairly by him in this particular; for a letter dated the 11th of July, 1803, signed L. Pepys, and T. Keate, was on that, or the following day presented to the Commander in Chief, complaining, that you and he were injured in your characters* and vilified in the public eye by my remarks on the constitution of the medical department of the British army, published in 1803. A copy of your letter was trans¬ mitted to me on the 19th of that month ; and you w ill see by my answer to Colonel Clinton, dated the 23d, a copy of which was, I presume, sent to you for your information, that you might have had the opportunity of vindicating your injured character in any court the Commander in Chief thought fit to appoint to judge the case. Ibis how7 ever you declined, trusting, for the accomplishment of your purposes, to meaiis less hazardous in experiment than open trial. If the letter of the 11th of July, 1803, signed L. Pepys and T. Keate, be a true letter,— -and not a forgery, your assertion, at page 29 of your obser* vations lately published, is a denial of your ow n signature given in 1803.— -I here subjoin a copy of the letter, with a copy of my reply thereto.

COPY.

C 69 )

COPY

Horse Guards, 19 th July , 1803,

Sir,

I have received the Commander in Chiefs commands to transmit herewith for your information, copy of a letter addressed to him by the physician general and surgeon general of the forces, and to acquaint you that, in consequence ot what is therein stated, His Royal Highness has felt it incumbent on him to recommend ^our being suspended from the situation of inspector general of hospitals to the royal army of reserve, to which you were recently appointed, until you shall either have substantiated the charges you have published against your superior officers, or shall have explained to tbeir satis¬ faction the parts of your late publication alluded to in their letter.

I have the honor to be,

Your most obedient humble servant, (Signed) W. H. CLINTON.

Dr. Jackson , fyc. fyc. #c.

COPY.

Upper Brook Street , 11 th July , 1803,

Sir,

When we had the honour to wait on Your Roval Highness on Friday last, we received Your Royal Highness’s commands to state, in an official letter, the matter then submitted to Your Royai Highness.

We then humbly solicited Your Royal Highness’s pro-

f 3 lection,

( 70 )

tection, and requested that justice might he done to our characters attacked in the execution of our office.

We were a few days ago informed that Dr. Jackson, late of Chatham hospital, had written a book containing violent abuse of us. # We disregarded this at first, as it is easy to abuse, and few in any office escape it : but on being urged to look into it, wre found the passages we had the honour to shew to Your Royal Highness.

The first is in page 341, and is as follow's : u Even these persons, Dr. Maclaurin, Morrison, and Andrews, who appear to have been suborned to give opinion on the subject,” Sec, &c. The true meaning of the word subornation, is by Johnson defined to be the crime of inducing any one to do a bad action.

The second is in page 165, and is as follows : u The manner was cowardly, contemptible in all its steps.”

The third is in page 1 68, and is as follows : Those who assert without knowledge are ready to disavow' with¬ out shame.”

We need not trouble Your Royal Highness with more;

a

—indeed the whole publication may be considered not only as a libel on us, but on Your Royal Highness’s administration of the medical department of the army, and even of government itself in the constitution of the Army Medical Board, every ride and order of which Board have received the sanction of the highest au¬ thority.

We trust wre need not state that Your Royal Highness told us, that from the evidence we received of the conduct of the general hospital at Chatham, we should not have

¥ A copy of the book was sent to the Medical Board Office in Berkeley Street, as soon as it was published; at least two months before this date.

done

V

( 71 )

done our duty, if we had not submitted that evidence to Your Royal Highness.*

It appears to us to be the highest want of subordi¬ nation in Dr. Jackson after what had past, to vilify us in the present publication ; but he is not contented with attacking us ; for Mr. Knight, then not1 in office, does not escape his censure ; he speaks of him as having had no experience, but what being surgeon to a regiment of guards gave him, and then adds in page 13, The pre¬ sent inspector general was about six weeks in Holland in H99, in the family of the Commander in Chief.

We abstain from troubling Your Royal Highness with more, or making any comment on the above, as with perfect reliance on Your Royal Highness’s wise attention to subordination and strict justice to those who are in¬ jured, we leave the whole matter to such decision.

We have the honor to be With all possible respect,

Your Royal Highness’s Most obedient and devoted humble servants,

(Signed) L. PEPYS.

T. KEATE.

Bath, 23d July , 1803.

Sir,

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 19th instant, which having been sent to Exeter, where I was supposed to be, did not reach me till yesterday in the evening : I lose no

* The physician general and surgeon general were reprimanded severely for their conduct on the subject of Chatham hospital. See Secretary at War’s letter in this publication.

F 4

time

time in making the necessary reply ; so that the business, -the subject of the letter, may be brought to a speedy issue.

I must beg leave to observe in the first place -that the publication of jthe book, or rather of the third part of the book which contains the offensive and indecorous passages alluded to in the letter of the physician and surgeon general, was commanded by an imperious neces¬ sity. 1 held for some time an important office at the army dep6t, and I need scarcely notice that my conduct, in the management of that office, was arraigned by the physician and surgeon general in the month of Decem¬ ber, 1801, after a mode unusual in military service, and in a manner particularly aggravating and insulting. The matter was ordered to be investigated ; and, as the sub¬ ject was professional, a Board of Medical Officers was specially appointed for the purpose of the investigation. The points in accusation were not substantiated ; on the contrary, the acquittal was complete ; and, as the accu¬ sation had been made without grounds, the accusers were reprimanded by high authority. This, I had thought to be sufficient in vindication of my character ; but evil report travels fast, and farther than good report. I had scarcely retired from public service, when rumour found its w^ay to the ear of almost every person who knew me, or who had heard of my name, setting forth that I was dismissed from the superintendance of the hospitals at the army depot, on account of unsuccessful practice and bad administration of the duties entrusted to me : In¬ formations of this nature were conveyed to me through different channels ; but conscious that the assertion was not true, I disregarded them, till they were repeated so often, and with such force as compelled me to publish a statement of the case for the satisfaction of my friends

who

'who were near, and the information of those who were at a distance.

I was relieved from duty in the beginning of April, and I did not begin to write the work, which I have now published, till the latter end of October, a fact which may be considered as proof that I had no intention of originally publishing upon the subject : The following extract of a letter from a physician in London, (a man of some eminence and w ell acquainted with medical news), to one of his correspondents, Dr. William Robertson of Bath, shews that I had strong cause for w hat I have done. Extract I have read both Dr. Jackson’s publi¬ cations, and I long held them and him in much esteem ; but after hearing of his bad success at Chatham , I cer¬ tainly considered him as injudicious, rash and so preju¬ diced by his own ideas and opinions, as to go beyond all the rules of common prudence, insensible to the loss of men, which was continually happening, so as at length to occasion an outcry among the attendants, and at length an enquiry at the Isle of Wight, which occasioned his removal, though long a great favourite with the Duke of York : He w?as accused of indiscriminate and profuse bleeding, and bathing, and starving the soldiers as to cor¬ dials and strengthening nourishment.” Such assertions and opinions, which prevailed in London and were pro¬ pagated to remote parts, may be allowed, not only to have justified, but to have commanded such an expla¬ nation as that I have given. I held a public trust, and I owed it to the public to vindicate my public conduct. I owed it to myself to vindicate my professional and pri¬ vate character from reproach. A father’s character is the inheritance of his children : it is the sole inheritance of mine ; and it is my duty to transmit it to them, not only without blemish, but without the suspicion of blame.

I must

( 74 )

I must not permit myself to encroach upon the time of the Commander in Chief ; and therefore I only beg leave to observe that I am ready to support, in any court His Royal Highness may be pleased to appoint, the truth of the general positions advanced in my publication ; or, to defend in particular .those points, which have been singled out as offensive by the physician general and surgeon general of the army.

As to the first specific charge, I must take the liberty to observe that, as I am neither a lawyer nor a lexicogra¬ pher, I cannot be certain that I am technically correct in my application of the word suborned ; but I under¬ stood, and still understand that to suborn, is to procure evidence to another’s prejudice by secret or indirect means. On that ground, I used the word; and on that ground I rest my cause. Dr. Maclaurin, I have to re¬ mark was placed at Chatham hospital to act under my orders ; and, while so acting, he appears, by a letter dated the 8th of June, 1801, (a copy of which is in my pos¬ session), to have had secret communications and corre¬ spondences with the physician general on hospital manage¬ ment and medical practice, tending to crimination. Such communications and correspondences cannot be deemed regular ; for I was then the head of the hospital, the person with whom the physician general was expected to communicate officially on the subject of medical du¬ ties. It can only be matter of opinion, whether or not there was such collusion of design between the physician general and the staff physician as marks the act of sub¬ ornation ; but the fact of correspondence, such as it proved to be, marks an act on the part of the physician general of encouraging and fomenting insubordination in Dr Maclaurin, an officer placed under my command : This is the fact, as it relates to Dr. Maclaurin, and which is

proved

( 75 )

proved by his letter of date the 8th of June. The other persons, Andrews and Morrison, may be supposed to have stood in situations liable to be influenced. The one was placed by the surgeon general in a situation of advantage, —out of the rules of regular service ; the other had been dismissed from the list of hospital mates, as refusing to go to Egypt when so ordered. I cannot say positively what he expected from the surgeon general ; but the surgeon general whispered me, at the time he made his visit to Chatham, that he would get him re-instated if I would recommend it. A person, who refuses arduous and ho¬ nourable service, is not a person whose services I value ; I therefore declined it.

Such was the condition and character of the persons called upon, by the physician and surgeon general, to give evidence, or opinion of my medical practice and econo¬ mical management. It has already been proved, and it shall be proved more fully if required, that the opinions were wrong : in fact, they had little chance ot being right ; for the persons who gave them had no oppor¬ tunities, or very circumscribed ones of knowing my prac¬ tice at Chatham : not one of them had, at any time, appeared in the Isle of Wight, and no testimony was brought from the Isle of Wight where the errors were supposed to be most flagrant. But, whatever might have been the motives, and whatever might have been the extent of collusion between the physician and surgeon general on the one part, and Dr. Maclaurin, Dr. Mor¬ rison and Andrews on the other, it will scarcely be doubted that the purpose and design of the one party was known to the other, for the evidence was in unison. That the subject was understood amongst them, may be inferred from the following circumstance : Information, on the subject of hospital management, was required from

Apothecary

( 76 )

Apothecary Dowse, then a district surgeon, but who had been at Chatham during the winter 1801. Mr. Dowse probably did not know fully the intentions ; but, what is more certainly true, Mr. Dowse, who is a man of a sin¬ gularly pure mind, did not know to fashion his opinion by the times : his report was discordant ; it was therefore rejected from the band of materials No. 1, 2, 3, 4, al¬ luded to in the letter, the materials on which was grounded the accusation made by the physician general and surgeon general, dated on the 10th of December, 1801.

This is fact, and it appears by this that evidence of a criminating nature was sought for by secret and under¬ hand means, and obtained from incompetent persons. Such seems to have been the opinion of the Board, spe¬ cially appointed to investigate the subject, viz. Extract We have taken no notice of two letters, one from Mr. Andrews, and another from Mr. Morrison, and we wish we could, consistently with our duty, pass them over in silence. They contain the observations, we may say cri¬ ticisms of these gentlemen, upon Dr. Jackson’s practice, and they state, that they write in compliance with the or¬ ders of the Army Medical Board. We cannot help think¬ ing, that the Army Medical Board have not sufficiently adverted to the mischievous effects of various kinds, that must arise from application to officers in inferior stations, for their opinion and judgment of their superiors, more particularly, when the application proceeds from those Who have the disposal of all medical promotion in their hands.” But farther, it is proper to be stated in the pre¬ sent case that, at a period after the accusations of the physician and surgeon-general, respecting the manage¬ ment of the hospitals in the Isle of Wight had been pronounced to be ungrounded, and that the Army Me¬ dical Board had been enjoined by high authority, on oc¬ casion's

( 77 )

I

casions similar to that alluded to, not to have recourse to the information of inferior officers, and consequently in¬ competent judges as furnishing evidence on which to form opinion, Assistant Surgeon Powell, one of the assistants in the Isle of Wight, being in London on bu¬ siness, was invited to meet the physician-general and sur¬ geon-general at the office in Berkley-street ; where, having made his appearance, his opinions were solicited as to my mode of treating diseases, and managing hospitals. This could not be considered as a fair mode of proceed¬ ing at any time : it had just been forbidden by his Royal Highness, the Commander in Chief, in an official com¬ munication.

It is known that it is in the power of the physician- general to command, in a public and open manner, every evidence which relates to the subject of hospital management and hospital practice; yet, while possessed of this power, a measure was adopted by the Board of getting detached papers clandestinely conveyed to the of¬ fice in Berkley-street; papers, which, thus garbled, were made use of to form judgment on my mode of treating diseases. This may be thought to be an act of suborn¬ ation, for it was done privately and with a purpose of injury: who were the persons suborned I know7 not; the papers, so procured, were produced as evidence of barba¬ rous practice by the heads of the medical department.

The next passage selected, viz. The manner was cowardly, contemptible in all its steps,” must be taken with its context: It is found at page 1 65. viz. Such is the accusation contained in the letter of the physician and surgeon-general. The motive which prompted these gen¬ tlemen to adopt such a mode of crimination, rests in their own breasts they are left in possession of the com¬ forts of it, If the design was good, it is warrantable to

say,

( 78 )

say, that the manner was cowardly— contemptible in all its steps. Had not the author (myself) been informed, that an impression has gone abroad and gained belief, that the interests of the British army have suffered by the manner in which the hospital of the army depot was car¬ ried on during his (my) management, he (I) could not have been induced to notice it. Such impression might be injurious to the public service, and on that account such a mode has been reluctantly adopted. The docu¬ ments annexed are official and authentic they will shew where the truth lies/11

This explains much.— When it is understood that it is not only in the power, but that it is the express duty of the Army Medical Board to examine the management of hospitals in Britain; and, that this is to be done in an open and public manner, it must appear strange that a work of such importance should be attempted to be done by proxy ; that is, by secret informations from persons serving in inferior stations, and necessarily supposed to be incompetent judges to form opinions on the conduct of their superiors. But when such informations, obtained clandestinely, as appears by Dr. Maclaurin s letter dated the 8th of June, were obtained and transmitted to the Army Medical Board; and when these informations are denied to exist, as is inferred from passages in the letter of the Army Medical Board, dated the 4th of July, and inserted in the present Publication, viz. We must beg leave to say, that no imputation has been attempted to be thrown on your character.” And again, in the same letter : In justice to the public, to us and to yourself, you cannot, for a moment think, that had we witnessed or supposed any impropriety in your conduct, we should have attacked it by insinuations and uncandid rumours ; but, placed in the important situation you are,

and

( 79 )

and enjoying confidence, which we can have no motive to shake,* &c. &c.” the term, alluded to, may be thought by most persons to be capable of justification : nay, far¬ ther, when it is understood that the information which was obtained previous to June, was denied to exist in July, and that it was afterwards made use of, when an ap¬ parent opportunity offered of its contributing to operate the destruction of the public and private character of an individual, a harsher expression, than that here made use of, might probably have been employed without violating the propriety of language.

The next passage (“ Those, who assert without know ¬ ledge, are ready to disavow7 w ithout shame,”) is a general remark relating to cause and action as mutual consequences. The physician and surgeon-general have applied it to themselves; and there are sufficient materials at hand o confirm the application. The letter of the physic cian and surgeon-general, dated 10th December, most expressly insinuates blame. A letter, dated the 28th De¬ cember, w as written by these gentlemen, and is stated by the Special Board, (to which a copy of it was sent), to have totally disavowed such meaning. But if blame had been in any manner attached to the management of the hospital at Chatham, and it appears the object was in a certain degree attempted, it was disavowed in a letter, dated the 4th July, about the time the depot w7as removed from that place.

I am sorry I have been obliged to go so much into detail ; but, the question so nearly concerns the tenderest subject which belongs to a man that I hope for indul¬ gence. In answer to the general assertion of the libel¬ lous nature of the publication, and want of subordina-

f See letter, p, 24.

* See the letter, p. 19, 20.

tion

( 80 )

tion in its author a few words will suffice; I acknow- ledge the physician and surgeon-general to be iny su¬ periors in official rank when I act in His Majesty’s service; but, while my superiors in that particular, I must beg leave to add that these gentlemen did not observe the usual official form of proceeding in criminating my conduct ; consequently I' might be supposed to shew less official respect in establishing my defence than would otherwise be due to their station. Attacked clandestinely, judged by incompetent evidence, and condemned without trial, (for I was superseded abruptly in my medical du¬ ties), I may be allowed to defend myself. The points of accusation were certainly of a serious nature: they were investigated, and stated to be unfounded : * the acquittal was known to few ; the accusation, with a grievous load of calumnies, was spread wide. It is only from the phy¬ sician-general, the surgeon-general and persons in their confidence, that the calumnies could be supposed to flow; for the physician- general and surgeon-general are the source. It was my duty to refute them. I did so ; but, in refuting a calumny, I trust it cannot be proved that I have written a libel. I have gone no further than the point of refutation ; but I intended to go fully to the point. I have added remarks in some instances upon causes and actions, as they arose strongly from the case ; but I have done less than I might have done, for I ab¬ stained from laying before the public some observations of the Special Medical Board, which are, in a manner official, and which may be supposed to bear out the ex¬ pression against which there seems to be the heaviest complaint. My character has been grievously traduced, as appears by the facts which I have exhibited and

* See p. 31, 32.

which

( 81 )

which I pledge myself to prove publicly. I acknowledge no act ot insubordination to the authenticated authority * of the Army Medical Board, while I continued in actual service, according to the situation in which I stood rela¬ tively wTith that Board ; nor am I aware of irregularities or innovations in my system of management, except such as add to the comforts of his Majesty’s sick soldiers, or as husband the public money in procuring the means of relief: and, whatever may be the opinion of the physi¬ cian-general and surgeon-general on my conduct, and on the work which I lately published, that work will not, I presume, be considered as libellous by others. I have given information on the subject which has been the study of my life; on a subject, in which I have cause to think I have attained some knowledge, and of the application of which I have had opportunities of giving some proofs which may be deemed demonstrative. This, instead of being a bad action, I had believed to be the duty of a good sub¬ ject; for, if I had even thought that 1 possessed means capable of benefiting the health of the British army, I should have held myself culpable, if I had not made them known, though less important and less fully established than they are.

I have trespassed long; but I shall only add that the zeal and diligence with which I have served on all occa¬ sions have brought me, in various instances, the Com¬ mander in Chief’s approbation. While these continue, with truth and honor as a guide for my conduct, I pre¬ sume I may calculate with confidence on his Royal High-

* All orders respecting the management of the depot hospitals supposed to be communicated to me through the commandant of the depot , and when so communicated, they were scrupulously obeyed,

G ness’s

( 82 )

ness’s protection. Were I conscious that the former had slackened, or that the latter were tarnished, as l should cease to deserve it, 1 would be ashamed to solicit it.

1 have the honor to be,

Sir,

Your most obedient,

And most humble Servant, (Signed) R. JACKSON, M.D.

Colonel Clinton , &c. &c. &c.

Like a man in the act of drowning, you catch at every thing within your reach, however dangerous to your safety ; and, among others, you have, unluckily for your¬ self, laid hold of Mr. Purveyor Whyte, as an illustra¬ tion and corresponding example of what may be expect¬ ed from my resentment. 1 did not mean to associate you with Mr. Whyte ; but, as you have chosen the place for yourself, I shall use no violence in removing you from it. As you have, in some measure, made Mr. W hyte’s case your own, and shewn exultation in the opinion of the court, I must permit you to enjoy it ; as I am pre¬ cluded from adverting to the circumstances of the case, which are now perfectly well known to the members of the court, and even others who were present at the trial. The case was a plain one ; but I was little acquainted with the manner of courts martial, and did not manage the business well; otherwise I might have made it so plain that no man of common sense could have mistaken it. If you, or Mr. Whyte be inclined to move it again, or any thing else that relates to Mr. Whyte’s conduct in St. Domingo, it will give me particular satisfaction to meet you.

At present I shall only observe, that as the extra judi¬ cial part of the sentence was a grievance, and an injury,

I conceived

( 83 )

I conceived that it was left open to me even consistently with the rules of military discipline, to submit a statement of the proceeding to the consideration of the Commander in Chief. This I did ; and His Royal Highness, who probably saw that I was not skilful to conduct a prosecution, did not I presume, discover any marks of malice or censurable re¬ sentment in my conduct, otherwise he would not have expressed himself so graciously as he did in the following communication.

Horse Guards , 8th Aug. 1793.

Sir,

I have had the honor to lay your letter of the 3d inst. with its inclosures (now returned) before the Commander in Chief, and have it in command to ac¬ quaint you, that the manner in which the opinion of the court martial is worded, that tried Mr. Purveyor Whyte in St. Domingo, cannot alter the very favourable impres¬ sion His Royal Highness entertains of your general con¬ duct and the merits of your services.

I have the honor to be,

Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant, (Signed) ROB. BROWNING.

Robert Jackson , Esq . fyc. fyc. #c.

I now, Sir, take my leave of you and this irksome busi* ness, and I shall not again occupy my time with the sub<* ject, unless you choose to submit the case in question to the decision of a military court, where it can only be com¬ petently judged. You have poured forth calumnies against my professional character without necessity and without

g 2 measure ;

( 84 )

measure ; but you have contrived them so unskilfully that they disprove themselves, and threaten to recoil upon yourself with destructive force. Whether the outrage which you have thus committed against military usage will affect your official existence or not, I do not presume -to determine ; but I think I may venture to say that the exposure, which you have now made of yourself will prevent any one from henceforth placing confidence in vour word or deed.

ROBERT JACKSON, M. IX London , Aug. 18 th, 1808,

i

QUERIES

( 85 )

QUERIES

PUT TO

- 1

MR. GRAHAM,

APOTHECARY TO THE FORCES,

AND ANSWERED UPON OATH.*

STATEMENT.

MR. STRATFORD states that when the men were admitted into the hospital they were conducted to a wash¬ house, containing warm and cold baths, they were in¬ stantly bled to the quantity of from 16 to 20 ounces without consulting the state of the constitution, symp¬ toms of disease, age or infirmity ; and they were on re¬ viving from fainting, which generally occurred in conse¬ quence of the loss of so much blood, plunged into a warm bath, in numbers of four to six together, and con¬ fined in by blankets fastened over the machine till almost suffocated, from hence they were dashed into cold baths, and continued till apparently lifeless ; immediately after coining out of the cold bath, a strong emetic was admi¬ nistered, which usually operated very severely, and they were carried to bed in this deplorable state, not being able to walk, and a dose of eight grains of calomel and

* I obtained the Commander in Chief's permission to call for the deposition of any person who served at the depot hospital at the time alluded to : the above gentleman had the best opportunity of knowing the truth, as being constantly with hospital sick, I there¬ fore put the following questions to him through John Saumarez, Esq. garrison surgeon for the island of Guernsey, and Mr. Graham's immediate commanding officer.

six

( 86 )

six of James’s powders was given as a purge which always occasioned spasms, with great debility, and a train of other distressing symptoms, for the relief of which they were again bled, and blistered from head to foot j they were bled a fourth and a filth time, in the space of thirty hours, and usually lost from 60 to /0 ounces of blood in that time.

£hiere.—“ Is this a true description of the treatment of the sick at Chatham hospital during the time you acted as resident mate, which was the time to which Mr. Strat¬ ford must allude ?

Answer. The patients admitted into Chatham hospital were invariably inspected and selected by Dr. Jackson himself, at a room set apart for that particular purpose, which inspection took place during the performance of the duty assigned to Dr. Borland in the south hos¬ pital, and myself acting as his assistant. After which, those men so selected as fit objects for hospital treat¬ ment, were again examined and passed into a bathing room, also set apart for this especial purpose wheie the different processes of cure commenced. It was sometimes usual to bleed them previous to their being cleansed, and sometimes m the bath itself 5 and m many cases, after having been thus purified, ?h bed. Cold water was adhibited by a large sponge, or in the -s form of shower bath, and in some cases by pouring cold w ater over their heads : The effects produced by this mode of treatment were astonishingly rapid. Men frequently and daily expressed their ardent wishes to return to their barracks, feeling perfectly well— but this was never allowed, until the cure was ascertained to be fully confirmed :

After being thus properly cleansed, furnished with

clean

( 37 )

clean linen, a flannel gown, night cap, and slippers, their beds being equally adjusted with every comfort, they walked to their wards w ithout hesitation, where, being so accommodated, an emetic was generally administered to the fever patients of a certain type, but of no violent composition, being a solution of emetic tartar, and given according to the powers of the patient. The bleeding in the bathing room was always attended to, either by Dr. Borland or Dr. J ackson, chiefly the lat¬ ter ; and the quantity taken away was measured by the effect produced, and all practice in the bathing room was immediately registered upon the books. The pa¬ tients so bled, were almost all fever cases, and the first impression w as generally found sufficient ; in the even¬ ing, a dose of calomel and Dr. James’s powder was usually given according to the regulated prescription entered in the hospital books, which was five grains of each. I never observed, and I believe no one else besides Mr. Stratford, that this bolus produced spasms, it never failed to produce a contrary effect, by a deter¬ mination to the skin, most gratefully pleasing to the patient, although evacuations were generally procured by it ; I never witnessed debility to arise from this practice, and it cannot be doubted that there was any, when these very patients, on the third day, passed into a convalescent ward : I have further to add, that during my continuance as resident orderly mate at Chatham hospital, I never witnessed or saw four or six men put into a bathing machine together, but I have seen one man deliberately washed in an open bathing tub, and on some occasions, a blanket or rug placed across the tub over his feet, which I supposed was to condense the vapour arising from the heated fluid ; this was only used to patients from the wards, and never to those admitted ;

I cannot

( 88 )

I cannot take upon me to say, that I did not, by order, bleed a man twice, but it must have been in a very few, I mean, fever cases. Blisters were used but not above one at a time in common ; when matters did not go on to fulfil former expectations, I have seen three at a time, which are the most that falls within my re¬ collection ; and with the modified camphorated bolus on the second day, tonics afterwards, was the general mode of practice in use, from which the most bene¬ ficial effects resulted.

Statement. Mr. Stratford further states, u that lie was frequently directed to bleed from 12 to 14 patients of a morning without knowing the cause of disease ; and in many of those orders no quantity was expressed, and lie was left to bleed at discretion as he thought proper ; but with verbal orders never to take less than from 12 to 20 ounces from each patient, and that he was frequently obliged to open six veins in one subject to get the quan¬ tity required.

Quere. By whose orders did Mr. Stratford bleed these persons, as the treatment of the out-patients belonged to you and Mr. Powell ? and did you continue to employ him, after you found him so inexpert at bleed¬ ing ?

Answer.- Mr. Stratford was rejected, and, as such, an unqualified mate acting at Chatham hospital, and in the surgery where the out-patients were at¬ tended to, has occasionally at my request bled one or two in a morning, but never more, and only this for a few days ; for the moment I paid attention to Ins mode of bleeding, (being more like a farrier than a regular bred practitioner) he was desired to desist, as the

men’s

( 89 )

mens5 arms which came in contact with his lancet, ne¬ ver failed to fester, and produced discontent amongst the men with a remark, why did I not bleed them myself. ? Colonel Kent's servant in particular which added to what I have said above, and feeling myself awkwardly situated, lest this complaint should be made known to Dr. Jackson, I assumed my entire duty, and from that time, I am confident, he never bled another patient for me*

Statement. Mr. Stratford states, That more instances than one occurred in his presence, where men have expired in the act of bleeding.”

Quere. Do you recollect any instance of this, not only in Mr. Stratford’s presence, but during the time of

your attachment to the hospital, under Dr. Jackson’s direction ?

Answer. It a man expired from bleeding, not only in the South Hospital, but the entire building of hospi¬ tals, it was my duty to know it, and not only to know it, but to report it instantly. I have occasion therefore to say, that Mr. Stratford has permitted himself to utter what he cannot substantiate, as no such cir¬ cumstance ever took place under Dr. Jackson’s di¬ rection.

Quere. W as blood suffered to run from the vein on the pavement, without any vessel to receive it? Was it

the piactice to do so, or did you ever see an instance of it ?

Answer. Bleeding was generally and carefully conduct¬ ed, and due quantities observed, according to instruc¬ tions or personal attentions either of Dr. Borland or Dr. Jackson ; and the object attained, for which the vein

H

was

4

( 90 )

was opened, a proper pressure was applied. A few drops may have escaped the bleeding porringer on the vein being first opened ; but the blood so taken in a porringer wras preserved for future inspection, and was not allowed to flow upon the pavement, none having been ordered to be so bled, as has been before stated. I never saw it, nor did 1 ever hear before that any other person had seen it.

Quere. What opportunities had Mr. Stratford of seeing the treatment of the sick in the south hospital, where all the serious cases of sickness were disposed, as he was not ostensibly attached to that duty ?

Answer. Mr. Stratford had no opportunity whatever in observing either the sickness or treatment in that hos¬ pital, being entirely under the charge of Dr. Borland, and myself acting as his assistant ; and no one w^as per¬ mitted to enter those wards unless duly authorised ; in such case I attended the permission obtained, was either from Dr. Jackson or Dr. Borland.

®)uere. -Did you ever see Dr. Maclaurin in the sick wards of the south hospital when I was present \ or do you recollect to have ever seen me prescribe lor patients in Dr. Maclaurin’s presence ?

Answer . I never saw Dr. Maclaurin in the south hos¬ pital sick wards when Dr. J ackson prescribed ; but I have fatal recollection that Dr. Jackson prescribed to three men in Dr. Maclaurin s presence, being called upon so to do, and the event too faithfully justified Dr. Jackson’s prediction, and this was at a period when Dr. Maclaurin lost confidence in himself, which can be proved if Chatham books are preserved ; and to one

naan in particular, labouring under pervigilium, to pro¬ mote

( 91 )

mote encreased activity, stimulants in the form of wine and brandy, in large quantities were administered. The man died !

This deponent William Graham, Esq. apothecary to the forces, voluntarily maketh oath that the above an¬ swers to the queries are to the best of his knowledge and belief correct and true. To each query, &c.

WILLIAM GRAHAM, M. D.

Apothecary to the Forces.

Guernsey , 6th August , 180S.

Sworn before us the Lieut. Bailiff ^ and Jurats of the Royal Court of Guernsey, where stamps are not used, this $th day of Au¬ gust, 1808. [■

%

Eleazer le March ant, Lt. BfF.

Pei er de Jersey.

John Tupper. I

I

4

C. Roworth, Printer, Bell Yard, Temple Bar.

MED. (’HIE. SOC. ABERDEEN.

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