The Express.
London, England, 1858-03-08 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 8.

Axon° the subjects which engaged the attention
et tae Cesanissionees in their inquiry into the thni-

tar? Coaditioa of the Army, was the very important
one of the education and qttalitleatione demanded of
candidate', for the appointment of Amietant-Surgeen.

The country has a right to expect that the necessary
awesome will be taken to secure ample, immediate,
and skilled assistance to the soldier when wounded
by the enemy while fighting his country's battles, or
when struck down, as is shown by this Report
to be much more frequently the ease, by the
band of disease. In many of the Continental armies
young men are educated at the expense of Govern.
meat for this department of the profession,
means being taken to secure from them in
return a certain number of years of service before
they are permitted to retire from the Army. But
this country, in accordant* with its free-trade prin-
ciples, leaves to private enterprise the education of
the Medical Ofiloers. Candidates are required to
produce evidence of having good through a certain
course of study, and to be possessed of • surgical
diploma. As, however, the attainments implied by
the latter vary according to the College from which
it 'hes been obtained—the diploma of London, for
example, not necessarily involving any knowledge of
Materia Medics, Chemistry, or Practice of Physio—
the candidates undergo an examination at the Army
Medical Board, with a view to obtain, as far as
possible, uniformity in their acquirements.
These examinations are conducted by the Director-
General and two or three of the Medical Mows
attached to his office; they are spoken of in a dis-
paraging tool by alt the witnesses, except of mune
Dr. Sum himself. Examining is an art, and one
requiring great practice, and it is no disparagement
tO the army medical officers, who are constantly oc •
espied with their professional duties, to my, that
they are not so well qualified to ascertain the acquire-
meets of candidates as men who are daily teaching
mad examining students, and who are compelled to
keep themselves up in theirknewledge of the various
Wenches they teach. " Unice' he is Ilkewies a
" teacher," my the Commissioners, " the Examiner is
" seldom perfectly efficient."
When the candidates have passed this examina-
tion they are sent to Fort Pitt, where they undergo
an additional test by being placed in charge of rick,
and their capabilitiee are reported on by the chief
Medical Officer. Bat this can be of little value, as
Dr. Stunt stated that be did not recollect any one
being rejected there on account of deficiency of
professional knowledge. They are, however, prao-
tically instructed in the application of bandages, and
are required to make themselves acquainted with
the regulations of the service and the mode of com-
piling the returns which are required from regi-
mental medical officers. As the period of their stay
at Fort Pitt, however, is not fixed by regulation, but
depends on the exigencies of the service, the amount
of instruction there given them must vary
greatly. It does not appear that the can.
didate• receive any instructioo M the spiral-
ties of military medical practice, or in the appli-
cation of sanitary science to the preservation of the
soldier's health in the various and peculiar circum-
stances in which he is often placed. This know-
ledge must, therefore, be too often acquired at the
expense of the soldier. Who can tell how mach
safferieg, nay, how mach loss of life, might be averted
by a coarse of instruction in these branches ? It is
true there are in Edinburgh and Dublin Professor-
ships of Military Surgery, but the concurrent testi-
mony of the witnesses examined as to their utility
was, that if not positively injurious, they aro at least
of so vale*.

With • view to remedy the defects above noticed,
end to ensure each an amount of knowledge and
efilciency is the Medical Officers of the Army as the
country has a right to expect shall be secured for
the benefit of the soldier, the Commissioners
have recommended that • medical qualification be

required, ea well as a surgical ; that a practical and
competitive examination be made the mean. of ad-
mission into the service ; and that a special Board of
Examiners, similar to that now employed by the
Foot India Company, and unconnected with the
Army Medical Board, be appointed to conduct it.
They deo recommend tie formation, at Motley, of a
Belied el Military Medicine and Surgery, to which
all candidates shall be sent for six months, under the
title of Probatiosera, after parniog their examine-
hoo, with a view to their being instructed in the
specialties of military practise. At the end of that
period they must merge a mood examination, to
show that they have made an adequate use of the oppor-
falsities thus afforded of acquiring knowledge and of
qualifying themselves far their &tore career. t#rsi
are the important, and it opposes Se es premien and
juoicioom, suggentiona for the improvement a ass
Medical Corfu. The Coomieeicnters have tie waft
of beginning at the right sad, and the remile
we trust, be commensurate with our expectiviellni

THE following is an extract from a private letter
of an officer in °tide, and may serve to ►how tin
people of this country that Sir Cotix CA it rnitu. hen
still an arduous task to perform, and th►t a strew
of reinforcement@ should be kept up to maintain
atranith of his tomes. Ws understand that the,
Goveamoa-OENEEA L hinsaelf wrifal in anYtaing Ulf
& linguine strain. Sir Cott@ CextitXl4 Wei expeeemi
to arrive at Cawupore with his doge train About the

•I ••••• •-• • I

Bth or 10th of February ; and thenarouoaa
fear that he would have to advance uloon taeknoir
with only 12,000 Europeans:
" °flken' Hospital. Oairtipero, Jas. 16.

" These is much work still to be done in India,
and I fear the force at present in the country is
scarcely adequate to the task. The paucity of troops
delays our operations, and every day's delay gives
fresh confidence to the enemy. Where are the
40,000 fresh troops that were to hays arrived in the
country by December ? everybody is asking. They
come dribbling in, but the work to be done ought to
be done quickly and effectually. Quickly, it cannot
be done, unless a little more alertness is shown by
the lune authorities; effectually it never will be
dean if they keep on indulging that idle and child-
ish idea that at the end of every siege the mutiny is
araelied. This is what they said at the fall of Delhi,
now nearly four months ago. They repeated the
tattering and soothing assertion again at the relief
of the garrison in Lucknow by Havelock's fore*,
which itself became part of the beleaguered garrison;
and I imppose the Times will want again to perms&
you, with their misapplied eloquence, that at the
wooed retied of the then starving garrison by
Sir Colin Campbell, the long-delayed time
had at length arrived—that England's new
deliverer, in the person of our Scotch hero,
would really do the work in style, walk triumph-
antly through the streets of that immense city,
colours flying and bands playing, the native popu-
lation and soldiery cringing at the conqueror's feet,
with innumerable petitions for pardon and grace ;
that the old Queen-Mother, her pride bumbled and
her boast of the extermination of the English falai-

fled, would open her palace gates to the gallant
little band, and hail their brave leader ae
the lord and master of her vast dominions;
that with Sir CoHa's entry into Lucknow
the mutiny would be finally crashed and rebellion
trodden oat, sad that henceforth peace and tran-
Trinity would reign. Why ' lay such flattering
unction' to their souls ? Far better were it that the
news should nes its able pen in calling attention to
the true magnitude of the war we are engaged in,
and calculate the strength and TOSOOIIIIII and peculiar
circumstances of our enemy. It is now nearly a
twelvemonth ego that the Indian government first
began to see that all was not as it should be. Re-
peated conflagr►tions in the Sepoys' lines, cutting of
the telegraph wire, burning of officers' bungalows,
first warned them of the mutiny which was about to
take place and make the whole world recoil with
disgust at the unheard-of atrocities it brought in its
train. In May, the fighting first commenced, and
from that time to this the flame of rebellion has
been spreading till the while country has become
ignited with it. Little bands of English have been
called upon to hold their own against overpowering
numbers of men, from whom no mercy, but rather
the most lingering death that a savage mind could in-
vent, most be expected; and nobly have they done, and
still continue to do, their Mak. But there is much
desperate fighting still in store. These men know
well they are fighting with halters round their
necks, and there are but two alternatives left—to die
like hairline, or to be hanged like a felon or shot
like dogs. It I. easy to mss which they would
prefer. There are still NOM 100,000 fighting
men, of whom some 50,000 are, I fancy, Sepoys,
regular and irregular, whom we have still to dia-
pose of. Is it to be supposed that thee. men will
tamely lay down their arms when they know the
fate in store for them ? And is it likely, on the other
hand, that we should offer pardon or anything but
. .

unconditional surrender, to the murderers of our
countrywomen and children ? Bo we are fighting
with a mutual understanding : no quarter to fighting
men. It is true, most of these, in fact all, are
beaten troops, andou such, disheartened and even
more disorganised than they were at first t but still,
u long as they have powder and shot, and food and
trenches to sit in and brick walls to fire from, they
will be, to a eertain extent, a formidable enemy, and
it will not be so easy a task as the Times considers
to lash these ruffians into obedience, or sweep them
from the face of the earth as a foul blot on humanity.
What, after all, are 40,000 men to spread over a vast
country like this, convulsed throughout with the
same shock? and how few remain united of this
scattered force to conquer a country like (hide,
whose whole population is inimical to our rules It
will be done, like everything England undertakes,
under God's blessing, but not in each a way as to
preserve her prestige, unless prompt and energetic
support is given from home. Already we have as
oepted assistance from some native chiefs, a proceed-
ing which, however politic mad useful in one sense,
will not improve the moral weight of our authority."