R. W. FERGUSSON'S PROFESSIONAL NOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS.

nets posthumous volume contains the spontaneous reflections of a physician of wide experience in military and private practice, thrown off with a somewhat rough but ready pen in the intervals of business, or dur- ing the leisure of advancing life, on a variety of subjects both medical and military. It was Dr. Fergusson's design to have revised and con- siderably extended the work ; but a stroke of paralysis intercepted his intentions, and after his decease there was nothing to be done but to pub- lish the materials as he had left them.

William Fergusson was born at Ayr, in 1773. His family was respectable ; but being a third son, he had to rely upon his own exertions. After a classical and medical education, oommenced at Edin- burgh and completed in London, be was appointed an Army Assistant Surgeon, in 1794; and served in the disastrous campaign in the Nether- lands. From that time till the general peace, he was actively engaged in various quarters of the world. He was employed in the West Indies in the earlier and closing periods of his military career; he accompanied the army in the second Netherlands campaign of 1799; in 1801 he went with the fleet to the Baltic as Staff Surgeon of the troops, and received the thanks of Nelson; he served in the Peninsula, and was chief of the medical department of the Portuguese auxiliary force; in 1815 he ac- companied the expedition against Guadeloupe; and in 1817 retired into private life. At first he tried Edinburgh, but that capital was overstocked with the profession : he then went to Windsor, on the invi- tation of the late Doke of Gloucester, in whose staff he had been for more than twenty years ; and acquired a considerable practice both in the town and neighbourhood, till advancing age, and in 1843 a stroke of paralysis, compelled his withdrawal : he died in January last. The Notes and Recollections of a Professional .We consists of two parts ; the first containing the strictly posthumous papers, some of them scarcely complete ; the second embracing a selection from contri- butions to professional periodicals, which Dr. Fergusson was in the habit of writing off upon any subject that strongly excited his attention. Some of these are strictly medical,—as the papers on dysentery and oph- thalmia; others are still medical in their,eharacter though somewhat more popular,—as a valuable and we belie it Welt-known paper on malaria; great part of the book, however, relates to the Army, or rather to the soldier. Dr. Fergueson discusses the character of the three nations of which the British Army is composed ; criticises with unsparing severity their dress, arms, instruction, and mode of life, as enforced by regulation or the circumstances by which regulations surround them ; and con- tinually throws out suggestions for their improvement, founded not upon arbitrary rules and military precedent, but upon the nature of the case. To some extent his topics and conclusions are similar to those of Dr. Jackson in The Formation of Armies ; but the resemblance is merely general, and such as would necessarily arise from two persons of kindred mind and knowledge both observing the same kind of things, or rather laving them forced upon their attention in the exercise of their daily duty. Dr. Fergusson's book, however, is better adapted for popular use than the .bulkier work of Jackson. Indeed, a hundred pages would contain his strictly military matter, and form a pamphlet well deserving of study. In all that regards the economy and regulations of the service, a medical officer is the best of authorities. He has all the requisite experience, without which the ablest man is very apt to degenerate into a schemer ; and he brings to his task a freedom from habit and mere military preju- dice, which the soldier-officer is almost sure to have acquired. In nine cases out of ten, too, the medical man has received a better education ; in point of independent thought and the habit of original inquiry there is no comparison between them. A medical education, and all the habits of a medical man, tend to original investigation and independent conclusion ;

the military education, and Still more the military habit, rather induce an . . . unumummg submission to authority. Of course we speak of general

tendencies, not of individual results : a military officer may be of an open, unprejudiced, inquiring mind ; whilst a medical man may be an incarna- tion of bigoted prejudice. Perhaps Dr. Fergusson now and then pushes matters to an opposite extreme, and, like his collaborateur and country- man Dr. Jackson, rather looks at what an enthusiastic man can do than what the common run can be made to do for a shilling a day. Perhaps, too, in his generally excellent remarks on the clothing of the British Army, he does not allow enough for the prestige attaching to the scarlet, vouched for by so many ai3ecdotes in the last war. "The uniform of the British army is as faulty, in some respects more se; than that of the other armies of Europe. The colour, in the first place, besides being the most expensive, is inappropriate, and unsuited to the sober unpretending character of the country; for a man clothed in scarlet exhibits the dress of a mountebank rather than a British warrior going forth to light the battles of his country. Besides being the garb of a dancing-master, or a strolling play-actor, it is the worst adapted for any hard work of all the colours, as it immediately becomes shabby and tarnished on being exposed to the weather, and a single wet night in the bivouac spoils it completely. The heavy cross-belts, one of them to suspend a bayonet, so light compared with its tackling that the wind might almost blow it away, is worse than useless, being an abuse of power; as if the sol- dier was not sufficiently loaded with the manifold trappings laid upon his back when he stands forth in heavy marching order; and every unnecessary one ought to be held as mischievous, because impeding and deteriorating his general effici- ency. These things, being matter of plain common observation, should be cor- rected; and in our own rifle corps we have a beautiful specimen of what the uniform of the soldier ought to be: its dark green—its light black belt and cinc- ture round the waist—the ready convenience of the cartridge-box—all call for ith general adoption in the British army. One advantage would be, the banishing pipe-clay for ever from the army—as absurd and unwholesome a nuisance as ever

was imposed. • = *

"The hair-powder and the tight breeches and the long queux, have long been banished; but the tight stock remains, to delight the martinet when he torments the soldier. To use a common phrase, the soldier ought ever to have all his eyes about him, more especially when engaged with the enemy; and to encircle his

• neck with a baud of the stiffest leather, so that he cannot trap his head without 'Pain and difficulty, appears singularly preposterous; for, with his head an fettered and held up in the air, it is impossible that he can lay his face along the barrel so as to take correct aim with the musket. The circulation of the ascending ar- teries in the neck is by far the closest of any part of the human body; and to im- pede its relief by the returning veins, which a stiff ligature of any kind is sure to do, must have a stupefying effect upon the brain. It cannot fail, besides, to dete- riorate the sight, from the pressure of congested blood upon the optic nerve; and the stock would seem to be preserved only for the purpose of *generating a ten- dency to all kinds of apoplectic and ophthalmic diseases. "A heavy head-piece is everywhere a disqualification and hindemnee to the wearer' for to heat and cumber the brain, which being the source of all our powers and faculties ought ever to be freest, can never be justified. * • The horseman's .sword must protect his head; and if it cannot, an inner crown of the bark of the cork-tree, which is so light, besides being a non-conductor of the solar heat, and impervious to water, would avail to blunt or turn the sabre's edge better than a circle or cross-bar of heavy steel. "I advance no pretensions to fancy or taste in military dress; but I ought to know what constitutes cover and protection to the human frame; and amongst these, the swallow-tailed coat of the infantry, pared away as it is to an absurdity, bolds no place. If health and protection were the object, the coat should be made of round cat, to cover the thighs as low as the knees, with body of sufficient

depth to support the unprotected flanks and abdomen of the wearer." .

Our author, like Dr. Jackson, would have the soldier taught cookery. He also suggests that a mess should be permitted to draw the amount of the rations and cater for itself under proper regulation and superintend- enes, in order to insure variety of food, without which the stomach will crave for alcohol. Bearing full testimony to the excellence of the rations and allowances in our army, Dr. Fergusson has some hard hits at our unbending nationality, which subjects every one to British habits, and to a system, now somewhat upon the wane, of dosing every one with

spirits.

"At all other times, cexcept action on shipboard,] grog, grog, was still the cry. I have seen it as it were forced down the throats of the innocent Negro boy and the uncorrupted young recruit. We seemed to believe that the term aqua titre was its true designation. Every one was to have it—no matter what the age, the colour, the country, or the breeding. Our Portuguese allies in the Peninsula were the soberest of mankind. They liked their own weak country wine to dilute their food; but that would not do for us. We actually went for the rani of the West Indies and gave it them; and at the battle of Busaco I saw a party of Portuguese artillery, as soon as the rum ration was served, as if they had been possessed by the Devil, (and they actually were possessed by a devil in the shape of alcohol,) draw their swords to fight with one another when actually wider the fire of the enemy. "With national prejudice and bigotry we seem to insist that whatever tribe or nation we take into our pay shall forthwith be dubbed British soldiers, and be gifted with the tastes and digestive organs of their new estate. Our full pay is lavished upon them, and our rations as it were forced down their throats: but the Negro does not require more than about a fourth part of the salt meat; he, until corrupted, detests the rum; the bread or biscuit is in far too concentrated a form tobe agreeable to him; of the sugar he would take ten times as much if he could get it; and all the other articles' unless when in the field and removed from his markets, could be spared; for he will feed himself far better from the produce of the colony, with the plantain, the yam, the sweet potato, &e., because in them he will procure a far balkier and more savoury meal, seasoned, as he well knows how, with the native peppers, and a small portion of salt provision to give a relish; and in this way he prepares a mess which even the epicure, were he in the bivouac, might envy. Our full-pay, too, is as absurdly lavished upon him as our rations, for half would suffice. He delights to cater for himself; and, give him what we will, we cannot prevent him, for he will barter and exchange the regular provision for what he likes far better: and here he reads to his European masters a lesson which ought not to be lost upon them; for of all military instruc- tion, that of cooking and foraging—without plunder, however—is the most usefu to the soldier. Leave the Negro alone, with an adequate pay, he will find his own . dinner, and dress it. He will, moreover, build his -hat; and, when in stationary quarters, cultivate the surrounding grounds. We may pull down his barrack, for in a few hours he will have reared a far more suitable habitation."

We should gladly have gone further with Dr. Ferg,asson into his re:- marks on the propriety of increasing the Black troops in the West Indies, the deficiency of artillery in the British service, (singularly con= firmed in India while the author was lying on his deathbed at Windsor,) and the necessity of cultivating light troops and the rifle, especially in any contest with America, together with several other topics of discipline and economy : but we have already rather encroached upon our space, and must confine ourselves to a few extracts of a miscellaneous character.

THE BRITISH IN PRESENCE.

I shall now conclude this part of my subject with some general observations. With the exception of the first American war, and the earlier campaigns of that with Revolutionary France the British army has for ages held a distinguished place in the military annals of Europe: and amongst the qualities to which may fairly be attributed much of its success, is the dread silence of the troops when in presence of the enemy., and indeed on all occasion under arms. Our more lively neighbours have well 'described it as " cette affrense silence." A chance stranger thrown into the scene Might almost imagine that they were rooted to the ground by the enchanter's spell, so stern and statuelike is their immoveability. The heavy flouting colours, so unfit (when displayed) to be carried by the hand, are in their cases. Mere show in any way is unthought of, and every encumbrance is removed. Not a sound is then to be beard, save and except it may be the solitary note of a bugle, intelligible only to the light troops. The drumis hushed; and any other kind of music, at such a time, would be rejected as most unsuited to the deadly work they are about to be engaged in. The French leader speaks to and regulates his troops by the drum. Its bearer, with a rifle slung at his back, is at his right hand, and the charge is made to its ruffle. Oar musicians, and' all the non-combatants of every description, are, or ought to be, in the rear, under the orders of the surgeon, for the removal, the conveyance, and the succour of the wounded. Even these last, however hideously mangled, are generally un- complaining. They silently abide their fate, and yield up their breath, or submit to the operations of cure, with the same equanimity. * * According to my observations, the most querulous under wounds and sickness have been the Scotch Highlanders. The Irish may be more noisy, but then it is with less plaint.

FEVER AND PHYSIC.

The term fever is as mysterious as it is comprehensive: it is, in a great degree peculiar to the human race, and never, as an idiopathic disease, affects the lower animals. The uncivilized man appears to possess, to a certain extent, an exemp- tion; for the Negro tribes feel little of malanous fever, and the Indian races are far less subject to it than the European. * * • Have we any safeguard? Nome, but in the good keeping, good condition, physical and moral, of the troops: no remedy after the disease is established, none whatelza la the way of physic; for the best physician that ever existed will lose more patients than the most ignorant hospital mate, if he neglects the precautions of discipline and cleanliness; and if both be on a par in this respect, the event will in nine easel out of ten be precisely the same. Hence it appears that physic does nothing, and has done nothing towards establishing a better mode of treatment, since the days of Hip- pocrates. The battle is to be fought by the nurse, whether" in the shape of phy- sician or other attendant it matters not: only let that attendant be sagacious and diligent, and the patient is saved—the contrary, and he dies.* * Fever will run its course in every climate and in every constitution: it cannot be pre- vented; and so completely is its dominion established when once begun, ..that even the worst practitioner, that is to say the one who interferes the most with violent remedies, cannot always kill his patient. There can be no treatment of fever by physic but in studying the juvantia and the kedentia of the case—cultivating the first, eschewing the last, and never for- getting that there is a mighty power always operating in your favour—the vie medicatrix Natures. Do not thwart her beyond the mark, and she Will get you through difficulties with which, without her aid, you could not cope: but the physician who believes that Ile possesses, beyond these, medicines of specific power in fever, really should have his own licence suspended, and himself be put under cure. until the monomania subsides.

A SINGULAR FACT. •

At the celebrated Black Assizes at Oxford, so called from their fatality—the no less celebrated Old Bailey Sessions in 1750, and others—nearly the whole Court, including the Jury, were struck with gaol fever, through the circumstance of an open window, behind the dock where the prisoners were placed, sending a current of air from them during the whole day upon the assembled people; and not the least wonderful part of this remarkable occurrence was the fact, that the prisoners themselves had not at the time the actual disease they were thus com- municating with such fatal effect. They were not then in fever, because their constitutions had been so withered and benumbed through the long application of the poison which they carried about them, as to be incapable of throwing it off by the channel which nature had decreed, of acute disease. They resembled, in this respect, the inhabitant of the swamp, who, although never healthy, and destined certainly to an early grave, will often show nothing of marsh fever until he be removed to a healthy country, and then, if he has any powers of constitution left, it will most likely break out upon him: and so will the miserable gaol criminal, when restored to purer air and better clothing, in all probability throw out the fever which he had long imbibed but could not assume.