and the channel can only be kept in daylight, and only then by a skilful navigator. A few of us, therefore, resolve to take the boat and try and feel our way into the river and so to Tewantin. After an hour of weary pulling, we get aground; it is too dark to see the one stake that directs to the passage, and after continually jumping overboard and hauling the boat over bank and shoal we are left by the falling tide in four inches of water, unable to retreat or advance. And there we shiver and keep vigil from ten o'clock until dawn, dozing and damp, cramped and hungry, the sharks plunging around, the big stinging ray flapping, and the mullet leaping. Two young mothers with children are of the party, and they do not utter a word of complaint. The forced inaction of that miserable night in the darkness and cold is, with the inability to sleep, a terrible trial of patience.

That miserable night, however, cannot efface or dim the pleasant remembrance of our camping out-the fresh mornings when the grass glittered with dewdrops, the birds made the woods resound with their liquid notes, and the balmy breezes braced body and soul into a union of healthy vigour-the lazy gliding of our boat along the reeds, the noonday halt in some shady retreat, the tranquil employment of rod or gun when the fancy took us-and the peaceful evenings, with their wonderful exhibition of dissolving views illuminated by colours indescribable, their glorious stars, and their genial gatherings in the welcome tent. It was a perfect holiday.

REDSPINNER.

NETLEY HOSPITAL.

HEN great principles are finally established it is difficult to

WH believe in the obstacles by which they were met in the be

ginning. The vested interests bound up with ignorance and obstruction, which had to be swept away, were terribly hard to dislodge; and it probably took years of patient endeavour before a truth, so self-evident when demonstrated as to make it a matter of wonder why it was ever opposed at all, could gain a sullen hearing or grudging leave to prove its own existence. Science and class justice have always been thus opposed; and it is not too much to say that every radical discovery in the former, every great principle of the latter, has had to make its way against doubt, derision, misrepresentation, and the unfailing cry of injury to the established order of things, religious or social, should this upsetting doctrine be received, this revolutionary change be effected.

The establishment of naval and military Hospitals, which, besides being healing places for the sick, should serve as training-schools for the medical officers of the army, is a case in point. The principle, now acknowledged to be one as important to the well-being of the service as a well-organised commissariat or a strict drill, was once fought against with the desperation of that kind of conservatism which fears all change and denies all need of improvement; and nothing but the untiring energy of strong conviction ever enabled the reformers of the old bad system of military and naval hygiene to carry their point.

In this work France took the first step by establishing both military and naval hospitals, of which medical schools were an integral part, for the special training of military and naval surgeons. So long ago as 1715, M. Dupuy, "principal surgeon at the port of Rochefort, found manifold complaints made of the ignorance and inefficiency of the surgeons embarked on the ships," and to remedy the evil, wrote to the then minister, suggesting the establishment at the Hospital at Rochefort of a naval medical school, where young medical students destined for the navy might learn their special duties. His suggestion met the usual fate of all reforms. It

was snubbed by silence and shelved with contempt. Once again that same year he made a second attempt; another in 1716; another in 1717; and in 1719 "permission was given to make demonstrations of anatomy in the hospital, and of chemistry in the laboratory, but no assistance was given either in teachers or money." In 1720 M. Dupuy went in person to Paris to plead his cause before the authorities. "He represented that, by connecting a school of medicine with the hospital itself, students could become acquainted in advance with the various diseases and injuries received by mariners in all parts of the globe, in war and peace, and that this was a precious source of instruction, which it would be criminal not to utilise." He urged more than this, but this was the kernel of the argument, and common sense prevailed so far that he was empowered to open his naval medical school if he could.

When he returned to Rochefort he found that he could not do much. The commandant would give him for his own use but one small room, dark, inconvenient and partly filled with invalids; from which evil, however, resulted the good of the great naval Hospital at Rochefort, the first naval medical school established in France, and formally opened in 1722 with much pomp and circumstance. "So immediate and complete was its success that the minister wrote to M. Dupuy, to express to him how much the king was gratified with his zeal for the good of the service, and with the wisdom of his views for perfecting the institution he had created." He also gave him licence to improve his school, and a title of nobility; but the most valuable recognition was in the foundation of other schools at Toulon (1725) and Brest (1731). A royal ordinance establishing these three naval medical schools was issued in 1768; and during the most stormy times of the great revolution they were not only unmolested but were continued by a special decree of "17 Nivôse, An IX." "It is an interesting fact, which may be mentioned here, that the medical corps of the navy of France owe to the spirit of equality which prevailed at this epoch the concession of a right which they had long sued for in vain, that of being assimilated in all respects with the surgeons of the army. Perhaps never in any other place than before this decree appeared with more appropriateness the notorious motto of the Republic :

:

"LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ.’

"12 Messidor, l'an troisième de la République Française une et indivisible (30 June 1795).

"Les officiers de santé de la marine seront assimilés aux officiers de santé

des armées de terre pour le classement et le traitement. Il en sera de même pour les accessoires, les indemnités, les congés, les retraites et autres attributions. 66 CAMBACÉRES, Président.

"Signé

"Roux, VERRON, Rabaut, MARNE, Comité."

"How simply and easily such a law would have settled all the contentions which not long since disturbed the medical corps of our navy," says Mr. Richard C. Dean, Medical Inspector, United States Navy, from whose report on the "Naval Medical Schools of France and England" the foregoing extracts have been taken.

Since then these medical schools have been carried on with everincreasing success. The marvellous faculty of organisation possessed by the French has produced a system which seems to be almost faultless; and the substratum was too good from the beginning to need anything but partial and bit-by-bit reforms as time went on and knowledge increased. The discipline is strict; the examinations are sufficiently stiff; the cost of the whole education is borne by the government; but in return the medical men so educated engage to remain in the service for ten years, or to restore to the department the amount spent in procuring their degree; and, according to Inspector Dean's report, the wise liberality of the administration is felt in each department and in all the hospitals alike.

This naval medical Hospital had been established for more than a century at Rochefort before we in England recognised the importance of a like school for our own army and navy; but that such a school was imperatively necessary became every year more evident. Still, new views find it hard to get a hearing, and Dr. Robert Jackson, Sir J. Ranald Martin, and Dr. Parkes urged the question long and warmly before the authorities would allow themselves to be stirred. The shortcomings of our military medical and hospital service brought to light in the Crimean war, the efforts of the three men referred to and of Lord Sydney Herbert, and the evidence given by the action of Miss Nightingale at last found their fitting response; and in 1857 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the sanitary condition of the army. "A new system of regulations was prepared by this commission," says Dr. Parkes, "which entirely altered the position of the army medical officer. Previously the army surgeon had been entrusted officially merely with the care of the sick, though he had naturally been frequently consulted on the preservation of health and the prevention of disease. But the regulations of 1859 gave him an official position in this direction, as he is ordered to advise commanding officers in all matters affecting the

health of troops, whether as regards garrisons, stations, camps, and barracks, or diet, clothing, drill, duties, and exercises.

"The commission also recommended that, to enable the army surgeon to do this efficiently, an army medical school should be established, in which the specialties of military medicine and surgery, hygiene and sanitary medicine, might be taught to the young medical officers of the army."

The result of all this was that, on the establishment of the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley-the first stone of which was laid by the Queen in 1856-not only a noble healing place was provided for the sick and wounded, but also a grand medical school was set on foot for the better and more specialised education of the men into whose care they had to be given. "But," again quoting from Inspector Dean's report,

although it was on the recommendation of the Royal Commissioners that the army medical school was finally organised, the idea of such a school by no means originated with that body. It was Dr. John Bell, a distinguished surgeon and teacher of Edinburgh, one of a name and family that have given many honoured members to the medical profession, who, seeing the low state of surgical knowledge among the naval surgeons of the fleet when he visited their hospitals at Yarmouth, after the battle of Camperdown, first called the attention of the British Government to the necessity of establishing what he called a "great school of military surgery." The effect of this memoir was the establishment of the "military surgery chair" in the University of Edinburgh. The first occupant of the chair was Dr. John Thomson, who was appointed in 1806, and was succeeded in 1822 by Sir George Ballingall, an army surgeon of experience, and author of the well-known "Outlines of Military Surgery." In the year 1805 Dr. Robert Jackson, often styled the “Prince of Army Surgeons," published his excellent treatise on the "Medical Department of Armies." In this work Dr. Jackson unfolded an elaborate scheme for an "army medical practical school," which he proposed to establish in connection with the invalid dépôt in the Isle of Wight. The plan of this famous army surgeon was, in all essential particulars, the same as that laid down in the present constitution of the army medical school; this remarkable man having on this, as on so many other subjects, ideas in advance of the age in which he lived. The only step taken in this matter, until after the Crimean war, was the establishment of another chair of military surgery in Dublin. This and the corresponding chair in Edinburgh were finally abolished when the army medical school was opened in 1860.

The institution was first placed at Fort Pitt, Chatham; but in 1863 the Royal Victoria Hospital was opened at Netley, and to it were removed the school, the pathological museum, and the two libraries connected with the medical department of the army, as it was believed that young medical officers would have there better advantages for the study of disease.

Nowhere in the world, at the present time, is there such an admirable military medical school as this at Netley Hospital; nowhere. are the four subjects of military medicine, military surgery, military