The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-22 00:00:00

The Army Medical Service,

Sir C. Wood alleged on Tuesday night last in the House
of Commons that competitive examinations for the Army
Medical Service had entirely failed, and has introduced an
Indian Medical Service Bill which would do away with
competitive examinations. We do not hesitate to declare
that Sir C. Wood has been completely misinformed on this
subject, and has entirely misled the house. It will be neces-
sary for him to state what he means by the complete failure
of the competitive examinations for the Army Medical Ser-
vice. It will then be apparent that they have fully suc-
ceeded. They succeeded in supplying during the first years
of their establishment, and under the directorship of Mr
Alexander, a full, continuous, and increasing stream of
high-class candidates. They succeeded in furnishing to the
army a supply of men of precisely the quality and stamp
that were wanted—men fit to be intrusted with the sole re-
sponsibility of the health and lives of men and officers.
Presently, when by tampering with the Warrant of 1858
for the English army, by four years delay in applying the
Queen's Warrant to the Indian army, the Government had
rendered the Army Medical Service so unpopular that few
men—except those who were hopeless, helpless, and ill•
educated—would enter the service, the examinations were
successful in passing through all who were at all competent
persons; and were also successful in keeping back certain
persons who manifested the grossest ignorance and most
dangerous incapacity, but who otherwise would have been
admitted into the service, since they were legally qualified
---men who proposed to plunge a trocar into the breast of
a suckling woman, who could not apply a splint, who ope-
rated on the dead body so unskilfully that had the subject
been living they must have killed him on the spot. The
examinations have been highly successful, and Sir Charles
Wood could not have consulted either the civil profession
or the army medical service, much Ws the examiners them-
selves, before he made the statement of their complete
failure. They have only been a little too successful for the
Government ; they have interposed a che'k on the pro-
ceedings of the Horse Guards by affording an index of the
depression in the quality and the number of the candi-
dates which the uniform harshness, morgue, and, in-
justice of that department have caused. They ro-
pose, then, to do away with competitive examine
tions—to destroy the index and silence the tell. tale. An
attempt was made to induce the General Medical Council to
aisapprove these competitive examinations by working upon
the pride of the corporations, who were told that these
secondary examinations were offensive to their dignity.
But after inquiring a little into the working of the matter,
and seeing how successful they were in passing through all
fit applicants, and only filtering off a sediment of eo coarse
a quality as would shame the service and peril the welfare
of the soldiers, the council decided unanimously in favour
of them. What, then, can Sir Charles Wood mean by de-
claring that the examinations have failed ? He cannot mean
that they have been unfairly conducted, or too stringent, or
that they have failed to distinguish the good from bad. No
one doubts that they furnish, in the case of medical officers,
a fair and perfect test of merit and fitness at the time of
entering the service. He means that the military authorities
are shifting on to this useful part of the machinery the
blame which is, in fact, entirely and solely due to their
arbitrary proceedings and the insufficient inducement which
the medical service of the army offers. Like bad conductors,
they want to smash the index. It is no doubt an ingenious
device to cover the injury which they have done and are
doing to the army ; but it can only serve to increase the
defect in the quality of the candidates, and to damage the
efficiencylof the service by admitting indiscriminately those
whom the competitive examinations would have rejected
and such as aro utterly inefficient. If the House of Com-
mons would take the trouble to investigate the question at
all, we feel assured that it would never consent to abolish
competitive examinations for the Army Medical Depart-
ment, which are unanimously approved in the medical pro-
fession and by army medical officers. Mr Longfield and
Mr Hennessy have rendered a public service in offering a
spirited opposition to the progress of the India Medical
Service Bill in its present form, end we hope that Mr Hen-
nessy will further master the details of the question, which
will show how greatly such an opposition would be opposed
to the best interests of the army.—
id
id

REFRESENTATION OF KINCARDINESHIRE.
General Sir H. Arbuthnott having intimated his
intention to vacate his seat at the end of the present Par-
liament, Mr J. D. 'Nicoll, of Ballogie, has intimated his
intention of standing as candidate for the representation at
the next election in the Liberal interest. The present
member has represented the county for nearly 40 years,
and his principal reason for refiring is on account of in-
creasing deafness, which prevents him from paying all the
attention he could desire to his Parliamentary duties.