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.

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    head-quarters of his corps, on account of the state of his left testicle, which (according- to the report of the sur- geon) appears proceeding to a state of dissolution.' This is certainly a very hypothetical cause for the rejection of a recruit; perhaps one testicle may have been a little smaller than the other, which is no unusual circumstance. In some individuals both testicles are not in the scrotum. During the examination of 10,800 recruits, I found five in whom the right, and six in whom the left, testicle was not apparent. In two of these cases there was inguinal hernia at the side where the testicle had not descended. Hy- drocele and sarcocele are' decidedly disqualifying infir- mities. Cranium. —Sewere injuries of the skull always ren- der a recruit unfit for the service. A defect of this nature may be concealed by long hair; hence the propriety of having it cut before examination. Wigs are sometimes employed to conceal fractures of the skull and tinea ca- pitis ; and I know, from having committed mistakes in this respect, that it is quite necessary to apply the fingers to the cranium when the hair is long, or the recruit very tall. Ears,—-A recruit is ineligible when he suffers under a defect of the function of hearing, however slight, whether with or without discharge from the external meatus. But some persons are liable to a puriform discharge for a little time, as a concomitant of catarrh, unaccompanied with any functional lesion. Eyes—These organs differ in different individuals in the transparency of the cornea, the lustre and mobility of the iris, and-the blackness and size of the pupil. In some persons an increase of light seems to have scarcely any influence on the iris. The eyes of the same per- son also, are some'iraes different, particularly in the size and shape of the pupils, which are occasionally not round, but in some degree oval. Defects in the function of G 2