In at home, with few serious ailments among their inmates, the proportion of attendallowrd by >( MKce regulations is an but in ii M. dift, as there tl. nts are severe, and the patito assist themselves. The distance at which the cook-houses and latrines are in the arrai: t' field impose much labour on the or and tindiscomforts to which an- d. render them both mentally and their dm'. who with B much parade of " un<pici ve in tin- ambumost useless, being hut little fit to undergo the fatigue which th.-ir.tailed, and were, with BO;iddi. so. MI! peared, being, to use a vulgar phrase, quickly " used up." I saw enough of civilian orderlies to impress upon me the conviction that they, too, are ill fitted for duty in military hospitals, where it is so necessary to maintain "both a military spirit, and a strict military discipline.
They do not understand the soldier, who, in his turn, despises them, and thus an antagonism, almost impossible to control, springs up between them. Besides this, the want of the previous training of military drill makes the purely civilian orderly by no means so manageable, or so " workable " in a camp, where he feels as a stranger, and withal, becomes sometimes a hopeless burden. The recently-formed medical staff corps of our army, will, I believe, be found most efficient, being an imitation of the " Infirmiers " of the French Steady soldiers of character, or men especially recruited, forming a distinct corps, having promotion granted them in it for merit, retaining the military spirit and the military idea, but still constituting a separate fraternity, well paid, and wellfed (an essential for a sick attendant), having fixed duties and regular training, not liable to military service, entirely under the command of the medical officers, and yet subject to military discipline such is a rough outline of the corps which would render the best service in the field.
Each hospital should have its own staff complete. Its non-commissioned officers (wardmasters) of various grades, its cooks, and its tradesmen, and their distribution and emigration, should be entirely under the control of the principal medical officer, who should have it in his power to concentrate these men or disperse them, as his idi-.-is of the exigencies of the service dictated, without reference to any higher authority further than the responsibility which the due performance of the service entails. The independence of the "Intendance" in the French service of the medical staff, and, in fact, the superiority of the "Intendant. " in rank to the surgeon, and the authority which is given in their hospitals to the " Comptable " over the medical officers, is a decided blot in their system.