as gods when dead. We are proud to imitate these refined people in most of their manners and customs, but on a subject which all men hold most sacred, the health of our armies, we haggle with the profession as if we were bargaining for haberdashery or horse power. It is not so in the French Army neither of the present day nor of the First Napoleon.
Divinity and Law have their numerous representatives in the Councils of the land who watch over their interests with a jealous eye, and preserve their status in society;but Medicine has no representative either in Parliament or in the Court of Directors, and till it has, there seems no hope of its position being restored to it.
I make these remarks with no disrespectful feelings towards our Honourable Masters;for if I had my career to begin again, I should wish for no better field than entering their service as an Assistant-surgeon,in hopes of seeing it raised from its present degraded position. My present object is the improvement of that service,in which I have spent the best years of my life; and if I have probed old sores rather deeply, and applied the cautery some what freely, it is only in accordance with the precepts of the profession, that must often give pain in order to cure.
