act alone and unassisted, in cases where decision and perfect knowledge are required; in wounds of the most desperate nature, more various than can be imagined, and to which all parts of the body are exposed; his duties, difficult at all times, are often to be performed amidst the hurry, confusion, cries, and horrors of battle. Even in the seasons of the greatest difficulty, cold and heat, hunger and fatigue, vexation of mind, and all the distress of foreign service, aggravate disease; and, while they render his exertions of so much importance, teach him imperiously the necessity of an accurate and ready knowledge of his profession. It is to him that his fellow-soldiers look up at the moments of distress; his charities and his friendships are prized beyond all price! What part of education is there, needful or even ornamental, for the Surgeon, living at his ease in some rich luxurious city, which the Military Surgeon does not require? What qualifications of the head, or of the heart? He has no one to consult with in the moment in which the lives of numbers are determined! He has no support but the remembrance of faithful studies, and his inward consciousness of knowledge; nor anything to encourage him in the many humble yet harrassing duties which he has to fulfil, except his own honest principles and good feelings."

Powerful as this description must be admitted to be, it is yet not an overdrawn picture. Who that reads it but feels convinced of the truth of each sentence, and who cannot but be alive to the importance of any exercise towards the improvement of a science on which so much depends? The safety of the lives of our brave defenders is entrusted to the Medical Staff-their confidence in themselves is only to be obtained by a consciousness of being duly qualified for the performance of such arduous and highly responsible engagements; and a debt of gratitude is owing to those who have thus devoted their time to the advancement of the knowledge

* John Bell's Principles of Surgery, Vol. I., p. 2, 4to Edit., London, 1815..

of their profession. The brightest ornaments of the Medical Profession are to be found among those who have been engaged in the practice of Military Surgery; and, although the picture which has been drawn of its early history and condition must be admitted to be painful in the extreme, it is still beneficial to refer to it, in order to estimate the greatly improved and altered state during the present day. Thomas Gale, Sergeant-Surgeon to Queen Elizabeth, enables us to enter upon this consideration, and to contrast its state in that period with the present time. It has been raised from a truly barbarous condition to one of high excellence, and this has been achieved by proper education, by zealous appli cation, and by distinguished talent. To record these labours is but to perform an act of justice to those who, like the subject of the present Memoir, have successfully exerted themselves to the improvement of their profession. Thomas Gale, to whom I have just alluded, served in the army of Henry VIII. in 1544, and in that of King Philip, at St. Quentin, in 1557; he was subsequently attached to Queen Elizabeth, and the following is his delineation of the Military Surgery of his time and its professors :

"I remember," he says, "when I was in the wars, in the time of that most famous prince, King Henry VIII., there was a great rabblement there, that took upon them to be surgeons. Some were sow-gelders, and some horse-gelders, with tinkers and cobblers. This noble sect did such great cures that they got themselves a perpetual name; for, like as Thessalus's sect were called Thessalians, so was this rabblement, for their notorious cures, called dog-leechers, for in two dressings they did commonly make their cures whole and sound for ever, so that they neither felt heat nor cold, nor no manner of pain after. But when the Duke of Norfolk, who was then General, understood how the people did die, and that of small wounds, he sent for me and certain other surgeons, commanding us to make search how these men came to their death, whether it were by the grievousness of

their wounds, or by the lack of knowledge of the surgeons; and we, according to our commandment, made search through all the camp, and found many of the same good fellows, which took upon them the name of surgeons,—not only the names, but the wages also. We asking of them whether they were surgeons, or no, they said they were; we demanded with whom they were brought up, and they with shameless faces would answer, either with, one cunning man or another, who was dead. Then we demanded of them what sort of chirurgery stuff they had to cure men withal, and they would show us a pot or a box, which they had in a budget, wherein was such trumpery as they did use to grease horses' heels withal, and laid upon scabbed horses backs, with nerval,* and such-like. And other that were cobblers and tinkers, they used shoemakers' wax, with the rust of old pans, and made therewithal a noble salve, as they did term it. But in the end this worthy rabblement was committed to the Marshalsea, and threatened by the duke's grace to be hanged for their worthy deeds, except they would declare the truth what they were, and of what occupations, and in the end they did confess, as I have declared to you before."

But happily the picture is changed, and in no department of the profession has there been more real improvement than in that which is considered as Military Surgery. The general knowledge of the human frame, and 'the manner in which the functions are exercised by its several parts, have been diligently studied—the study of Physiology has placed it on its proper basis. In no condition can this appliance

be more needed than in those cases which occur in climates of intense severity, either of cold or heat.

The power possessed by man in resisting extraordinary degrees of temperature has always excited the astonishment of physiologists, and remains still unsatisfactorily accounted for. But, although this power may be exercised for a limited

An ointment composed of an immense farrago of herbs, oils, tallow, wax, frankincense, &c.

period of time without serious inconvenience to the frame, we are but too well aware of the slow and certain effects of a continued residence in hot climates. The diseases peculiar to these have been, until late years, but little studied, and the modes of treatment irregularly proposed. As more correct views of the physiology of man have been cultivated, medical practitioners have been enabled to direct their inquiries to greater advantage: hence the numerous works which have recently issued from the press upon bilious disorders, &c., the almost invariable attendants upon those whose destiny it has been to endure the effects of a tropical sun. It would not, perhaps, be possible to name any individual whose labours have more eminently contributed to promote this branch of medical inquiry than the respected subject of the present Memoir.

His researches, upon a most extended scale, have been conducted with an acuteness of observation, and a philosophical precision, which equally reflect upon him the highest honour; and the large work by which his name will descend to posterity has received the due and unqualified approbation of the Board which regulates the affairs of the Hon. East India Company.

JAMES ANNESLEY was descended from a noble family, was the son of the Hon. Marcus Annesley, and born in the County Down, about the year 1780. His professional education was derived at the schools of Dublin and London. In the former, he attended the lectures of Cleghorn, Boyton, Dickson, and Harvey, at Trinity College; and those of Hartigan, Lawless, Archer, and Wade, at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland; in the latter, he received instruction at the West End School of Medicine, renowned by the labours of Baillie, Cruikshank, and others. It was through the interest of Sir Walter Farquhar, Bart., M.D., that he received an appointment to India; upon which he quitted England, and arrived at Madras in the month of December, 1800. Upon his arrival he was immediately appointed to a corps at Trichinopoly, and joined the regiment in January,

1801; and, in the following month, was detached to join the field force in Southern India, under Major Macaulay, and was present during the whole of that campaign, from March, at Panjalam Courchy, till November, 1801, at Kalicoile. He was thus immediately engaged in the active duties of his profession. The service was desperate, and afforded ample exercise for all the energies of the medical department. Mr. Annesley took his place with others of the profession; but many instances of remarkable personal exertion on his part might here be introduced. He served with a battalion of native Infantry at various stations to the southward, and in Wynaud Country, and Travancore, from 1802 to 1805, when he was obliged to return to England on sick certificate. He was absent two years, returning to India in 1807, when he was appointed Garrison Surgeon of Masulipatam. Here his opportunities of studying the diseases of India were great, amongst Europeans and Natives; and he availed himself of those opportunities, by devoting his whole mind and attention to the causes and treatment of intertropical diseases. It may be remarked as an instance of extraordinary zeal in his profession, that, from that period to his retirement from the service he never treated a case, either in public hospitals or in private practice, without recording minutely the symptoms of the disease, the remedies employed, and the results of the application. These papers are now in my possession, having been bequeathed to me by their author. His attention appears to have always been particularly directed to the effects and the operation of medicines, in regard to particular symptoms; and, in the event of casualties, the post mortem appearances have been looked to, with reference both to the symptoms of disease, and the remedies employed. A continued and zealous attention to these subjects enabled him, on most occasions, to state with tolerable correctness the appearances that might be expected upon necroscopic examinations. By this arduous course of observation, Mr. Annesley gained a confidence in