Medical essays : compiled from reports to the Bureau of Medicine / by medical officers of the U.S. Navy.

  • United States. Navy Department. Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical essays : compiled from reports to the Bureau of Medicine / by medical officers of the U.S. Navy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    tereer and described as Ketteerer, although he had legibly signed his name without any double e whatever. A still more flagrant case occurred a month later. I had sent in the descriptive list of Hermann Philipp Spengler, and in five minutes received an enlist- ment paper from the clerk for my indorsement filed up with the name of Hermann Phillip Spangler. No physical examination can be thoroughly and deliberately conducted in the five or ten minutes which, I have reason to believe, are the average time devoted to this purpose, particu- larly by young officers. More than thirty years ago, Surgeon Ruschenberger, prefacing the American edition of an essay by Deputy Inspector-General Marshall on the Enlisting, Discharg- ing, and Pensioning of Soldiers, declared that the inspection of recruits, both for the Army and Navy, involving, as it does, the consideration of the interests of the Government and of in- dividuals, which are often conflicting, is perhaps the most im- portant and difficult duty which the surgeon is called upon to perform. Men who, through vice, dissipation, or misfortune, find it difficult to obtain a livelihood from private patronage, are very apt to seek employment in the Army or Navy, often with the sole view of obtaining medical attendance, and ultimately an asylum for pension; and even when the greatest caution and circumspection are observed, some unworthy and inefficient individuals gain admission into the service. Nor is this very surprising, when we consider that, prompted by their interests, recruits resort to every means within their knowledge to deceive the inspecting officer, whose examination is generally limited for each recruit to ten or fifteen minutes, a period much too short to ascertain the qualities of a horse, in which the most astute and wary jockey may be deceived. Paragraph 166 of the Regulations for the Government of the Navy requires a muster of the officers and crew, at which the executive officer, surgeon, and paymaster shall be present, whenever a ship shall be put into commission, for the purpose of verifying the descriptive lists, of ascertaining that the name