Hints to young medical officers of the army on the examination of recruits, and respecting the feigned disabilities of soldiers : with official documents, and the regulations for the inspection of conscripts for the French and Prussian armies / by Henry Marshall.

Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints to young medical officers of the army on the examination of recruits, and respecting the feigned disabilities of soldiers : with official documents, and the regulations for the inspection of conscripts for the French and Prussian armies / by Henry Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    321/492 (page 59)
    to the province of military officers, while the qualities of health and activity are in general left to the determina- tion of the medical branch of the service. From their pro- fessional knowledge and experience of the duties of sol- diers, medical officers are presumed to be capable of form- ing a tolerably correct opinion of the health of recruits, their power of enduring fatigue, and general efficiency. The infirmities or defects that disqualify recruits for mi- litary service, may be divided into three classes. 1. Obvious defects (chiefly external). 2. Defects not obvious (chiefly internal). 3. Feigned defects. period of life by organic phenomena, rather than by a succession of time, even if we had the most satisfactory information in that re- spect. Some lads of eighteen are further advanced, and possess more of the qualities that constitute an eflScient soldier, than in- dividuals of twenty-one; while other persons, who have not lived twenty-five years, evince traces of decay, arising perhaps from in- temperate habits, previous disease, or a feebleness of the constitution. The changes of the physical character of man are so imperceptible, and the transition so little apparent, that no definite marks of any particular age can be assigned. During the age of adolescence, the head is often comparatively large, the spine straight and long, and the inferior extremities proportionably diminutive. Puberty is charac- terized by an increased animation of countenance, hair on the chin, arm pits, and pubis, an expansion of the thorax, and an evolution of the genital organs, with a more complete development of the lower extremities. At about nineteen or twenty, some of the wisdom teeth generally appear; this, although liable to many exceptions, is the most specific diagnostic mark that organization affords of a particular period of life. The bones become gradually thicker, the joints strong, and the shoulders broad, the muscles firmer and more expanded. Under the skin more fat is deposited, which is diffused over the body. In the progress of life, corpulency to a certain degree commonly supervenes, and, in most men, the belly be- comes prominent. The approach to an advanced period of life is indicated by wrinkles on the forehead, particularly round the eye, in consequence of the absorption of fat, and by the muscles becoming less firm, the skin softer, and the extremities less plum