The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-24 00:00:00

278 between all the departments connected with the ad ministration of the medical department of the army produced on the part of every person of the depart ment timidity and hesitation, that led to bad results. There were two vessels laden with medical stores sent from Yarns to Bidaklava, and he was surprised to hear there should be any want of medicines and medical com forts either in the camp, or the hospital at Baliiklava ; lat terly, within the last three months, regular supplies of medicines and medical stores and comforts were supplied by regular vessels. He recommended the furnishing of commodious steamers for the conveyance of the sick and wounded as hospital ships properly fitted up, but it was not done until some time after he suggested it. He did not think that on the war breaking out there was a suffi• &tent staff of medical officers in the medical department of the army. The ages of some of the medical staff varied from fifty to sixty-two, and there was one purveyor of se venty. He could not express how onerous his duties had been since the war had broken out. Previously where he worked eight hours he now worked fourteen. The perpe• trial reference of representations and matters from one au thority to another interfered most seriously with the efficient performance of the duties of his department.. He would rather be placed under the control of one single responsible power, the Minister at War, exclusively, which would enable him to execute his duties at one half the labour, and with tar greater satisfaction to the public. Matters would receive immediate attention, and decisions would be given without delay, and without reference to multitudinous departments. The public would know on whose shoulders the blame lay, and this would be a piece of good luck for the doctors. (Laughter.) He never ad hered to official routine when he had to do a duty, but as soon as he heard of the great want of things he urged an immediate supply. The cost of medical comforts up to the pr. sent time was 30,0001. The want of medicines and supplies far the hospital was attributable in a great degree to the inefficiency of the transport service and purveyor. Some of the officers in the hospital at Scutari were, he be lieved, censured. He said most decidedly, and was prepared to prove, that no medical officer or any of the staff was to blame, and he was bound, from the communications he re ceived, to consider that there was a sufficiency all the time of medical comforts and appliances. Remonstrances were made to the transport. department, over and over again, on the deficiencies in their serviee. Be had made represen tations to the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Sidney Herbert in conversation, and to the heads of the department at the Ordnance, and the manager of the store department at the Tower, but he did not, know what representations were made to the Admiralty, and if he wanted to address the Ad miralty, he must do it through the commander-in-chief. When the representations appeared in the papers, he, with the concurrence of the Duke of Newcastle, sent out a medical commission consisting of Dr. Cumming and two other gentlemen, one a barrister, to inquire into these matters. The commission left at the end of October, and they had reported to the War Department. Their report was being printed. The commission had no power of re moving or censuring, but only power to report to the corn minder-in-chief. He considered himself in no way re sponsible for the failure or success of the hospital at Scutari, and asked Mr. Sidney Herbert's permission to throw off all responsibility with reference to the hospital, although he was the head of the medical department, and responsible to the public for its efficiency and management. The answer he received from Mr. Sidney Herbert dis charged him at his judgment from all responsibility con cerning the hospital at, Scutari. It had been stated that the ambulances were very inconvenient, but he had it from a general officer, Colonel Torrens, who was one of the first conveyed in them from Inkermann or Balaklava, that he was astonished how comfortable they were—so far as com fort could accrue to a person in his position. Most of them were narrow, but to put a wounded man in a wide space where he could roll about would be to kill him. (Laughter.) The only objection to them was their weight, about fourteen cwt., the weight of an ordinary omnit us. He understood from Dr. Hal, that the ambulances did their work admira bly, and were excellent, with the exception of their weight. About forty litters were now going out, and sixty carts, together with a hundred pairs of litters and a hundred pairs of chairs, which latter were sent out two months ago. There were plenty of disinfecting agents sent out of every descrip tion, such as chloride of lime, zinc, and soda. They were sent in immense quantities. Mr. LAYARD : What became of them ? Dr. SMITS supposed they were used in the hospitals . Charcoal, as a deodorising agent, was also sent out in large quantities. He wrote to the military secretary on the 28th April, 1854, suggesting that winter clothing should be provided for the troops in the Crimea ; and the result was, that a month or so afterwards fur caps, fur coats, pea jackets of all descriptions lined with flannel, trousers of all kinds, long boots coming up above the knees, comforters, and masks for the face, were made ; in fact, everything that human beings could devise in the shape of winter clothing. He presumed that those things were sent out to the Crimea, but he did not know it of his own knowledge. Besides the winter clothing which was lost with the Prince, a large supply of similar articles went away from this country for the Crimea in August last. He was acquainted with the amalgamation of departments which had recently taken place at the War-office. That made only one less superior over his (witness's) depart ment than there was before that change. He still ad dressed what letters he had to write to the War-office on civil, financial, or purely medical subjects connected with his department, to different officers, but those officers were all presided over by Lord Panmure. By Colonel LINDSAY.—Prior to the war the cost to the Government of the whole army of 120,000 men for medi• vines, instruments, and surgical appliances, was 9,0001. a year: and for the last twelve months, since the war oommenaed, it has cost the Government 40,0u01. for those things: I\ THE PRESS. Mr. LAYARD, in his evidence, recapitulated a mul titude of the statements which he has already made from his place in Parliament., adding some new and more forcible details. Among these he said, con cerning the neglect and filth which disgraced the Scutari hospital at the time of his visit Who constituted the superior departmect he could not say. Thought the want of a governor at Scutari was the source of all the evil. Had never seen any distinct Go vernment authority, and that was his difficulty ; in plain words it was nothing but confusion. He never was able to distinguish where responsibility began, or where it ter minated. He knew it was within the department of Dr. M`Gregor to get twenty men to do what was required; but he had no hesitation in saying that if he had done so he would have immediately been pounced upon by another department, so that such attempts were stopped by routine. One gentlemen told him it was not his department, and another it was not his departmeut. But be went to another officer—here there were two or three departments inter vened—the gentleman to whom he had been recommended had done his duty, and he was referred to two or three de. partments. He asked if he might use his name to this person, and represent the case. He said, " Not only may you use my name, but take this letter. and press the ne cessity of doing sotuething." He went to this person and told him the state of the case, and he replied that he knew it well. Witness asked hint what ought to be done, when he said that the only plan was to employ eight men, with a strong wire or bamboo canes, to clean out the soil-pipes, &c., and let the tape be repaired. He thought that this work should not be given to our own soldiers, but that the Turks should le employed in it. He suggested that six• teen men should be set to work, in order that they might have more frequent change of ler, which was so frightfully impure. To this the party with whom he was speaking said he had no money. • • • • • The commandant was the senior military officer, and had the command of the barrack hospital; but in all the de partments there always appeared to be a kind of fear of responsibility, or going beyond their instructions. At the same time there was a very severe system of routine kept up; and, therefore, he thought that it would be most de sirable to know what instructions were sent out from home to those individuals. As to the treatment of the sick on the field of battle and afterwards, there was age net's' state ment that they were treated kindly by their (officers ; but as to those ou boarl the transports, there were opinions sianimously strong that they were treated b dly. At the hospital at Scutari the men felt I a wish to bury every former neglect in oblivion, and only to express their gmti tads to Miss Nightingale and the other ladies who had come out there. As to the appearance of the men who arrived there sick, be had never read a description at all adequate to their ghastly appearance ou amving at the hospital ; and although some of them were not ended until four o'clock in the afternoon they had received no nourishment since the previous evening. They were under the charge of Admiral Boxer, and could not be landed until arrangements were made for doing so. Perhaps the landing would be arranged to take place on the following morning, and consequently no preparations were made for giving the sick their breakfast on board ; but a breeze might set in, and the Bosphorus would become rough, and as there were not sufficient boats they could not be landed. They were not fed on board, because they were expected to be landed, and could not be taken to the hospital; so that between the two they got nothing at all. He had ordered some of them arrowroot until they could get the forms filled up, sad in some cases the nurses told him that those persons had not hat. anything for matey hours before. He had never before seen au equal amount of famine as that under which those sick men were suffer ing in their beds. The ships were at the farthest three quarters of a mile from the hospital, and sometimes not more than a quarter of a mile from it. The landing-place was about one hundred yards from the hospital ; but as it was a very steep place, and there was a very great diffi culty in carrying the sick up to it, they were carried by the Turks upon stretchers, upon an incline as steep as a rail way embankment. The clothes of the men were swarm ing alive with vermin, as thick as the letters in a small page of print. When he had been about to assist to get some poor man into bed, the men themselves had en treated him not to go near them from the state their clothes were in. Indeed, while there, his own clothes were never free from vermin. AMONG recent improvements in screw steam machinery a simple but effectual plan has been in troduced by Mr. Penn for preventing that constant and excessive wear and tear of the bearings on the shafts of screw steamers which has hitherto been found so great a practical difficulty and so con tinually recurring a source of expense. He intro duces between the bearing and the shaft thin slips of wood, which have the remarkable property of en tirely suspending that incessant waste of material which, after a certain pressure on the square inch has been attained, is constantly in progress. This simple expedient has been adopted in the recent repairs of the Himalaya, and will probably be ap plied, if found successful in her case, to all screw steamers. While the surface of the bearing is pre served from waste, singularly enough the slips of wood show no indication of being rubbed away or heated. A NEW GENERAL MILITARY HOSPITAL is ordered to be built at Chatham on the vacant piece of ground at the rear of Fort Pitt, and the erection is to be corn• menced immediately; five hundred of the sick and wounded in the Cas'mate Barracks have been re moved to Brompton Barracks. SATURDAY, Foreign Corrtspontana. I'EANKFORT, March 18. • AT the late audience granted to M. liwzot at the Tuileries, the Emperor inquired of the Orleans ex- Minister his opinion on the chances of peace. M. Guizot was short, sharp, and decisive-- ,, M a y i t please your Majesty, peace or war entirely depends upon the wiil of two emperors, and one of them is dead." The reply was clever, but the matter con• tamed in it must be taken with reservation. No one is more thorougbly conversant with northern polity than the councillor of the late Louis t'hilippe. The citizen King, after fruitless attempts to conciliate the Emperor of Russia, by way of counteraction, revived discussion, "sourdem,ent," on the unauthorised divi sion of Poland. Any view of that nature could not be tolerated by England, then advised by the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Palmerston was never dis posed to disport himself in the frozen waters of the Baltic. He is not in the habit of playing with edged tools. The question is one exclusively French. By a combination of probable, if not necessary, events England may ultimately participate in a Polish movement The directing policy, however, must come from France, from imperial battalions march ing with a Napoleon at their head. Then let Prussia look to herself. Neither Prussia nor Austria are in any way nearer to a settlement of the Germanic dispute. The mobi lisation of the contingent is still opposed by Prussia, although the contingent itself has been unanimously conceded. Germany will therefore be in a state to repel invasion—and from whence does she apprehend attack? Austria, in this instance, has been straight forward, and, directly and without equivocauon, has accused Prussia of fomenting, at the Diet, ill will against France, with the intention of compro mising Germany in the Russian campaign. Even had it been advised, the language of Id. de Bismarck could not be more suitable than it is to fan the smouldering flame and to counteract the conferences of Vienna. Ihese conferences, treating of Russian and Ottoman matters only, are confined to the four points, without power of divergence, and cannot reach the evil of Germany. By a separate and pri vate treaty betwixt France and Austria, minute and precise, certain contingencies have peen provided tor satisfactorily ; and as these two important States become more intimate in their relations, so, pro tanto, does the attitude of France and Prussia, by each diplomatic failure of M. de Wedell, approximate to a position less amicable than neutral. In very truth, albeit the war be actually confined to the Crimea and Sebastopol, the dispute betwixt nations has become general. Settle tt.e one question as they may, the other yet remains behind, more serious than the first, because more general and immediate in its territorial results. There is a fresh complexion also added to the more familiar history of Russian intrigue. The Empress Mother, in her Germanic affection, is naturally Prussian, whereas tile present Empress, a princess of Hesse Grand Ducale, inclines to Austria, and bears in memory the proposal to elevate the Grand Duchy into a kingdom, At St. Peters burg the Germanic faction will probably pur sue a different course from heretofore—one by which Austria may be a gainer without jeopardising her engagements with Western Europe. Italy is the real difficulty betwixt Austria and France. Bitter is the temper of Austria at being obliged to acknowledge and to admit a constitutional kingdom of Italy in a congress of European nations, and to be a party, as it were, to the prominent act which Sardinia has performed. Without a particle of papistic weakness, she yet countenances Jesuit ultramontanism to serve her private purpose here after. J. E. L. lortign anb goloniai 3nitilignut. FRANCE. The belief that the Emperor intends to visit the Crimea still prevails in Paris, and the 10th of April is now stated to have been fixed as the date of his departure. On Tuesday his Majesty reviewed, in the Court of the Tuileries, several corps of the Imperial Guard, to whom he presented colours, and addressed in the following speech : Soldiers,—The army is the real nobility of our country ; it preserves intact from age to age the traditions of the national glory and honour. Behold, then (pointing to the colours), your genealogical tree! It marks a new victory for each generation. Take, then, these colours. I intrust them to your honour, to your courage, to your patriotism ! These words elicited the most enthusiastic applause. The troops were all in marching order. - 2•011