A letter to the Right Honourable the Secretary at War, on sickness and mortality in the West Indies : being a review of Captain Tulloch's statistical report / by Sir Andrew Halliday.

  • Halliday, Andrew, Sir, 1781-1839.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Right Honourable the Secretary at War, on sickness and mortality in the West Indies : being a review of Captain Tulloch's statistical report / by Sir Andrew Halliday. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    connected with your appointment as Secretary at War, that more urgently demanded a most thorough and searching investigation. Other Secretaries at War may have distinguished themselves by their knowledge of accounts, and the excellence of their official regulations— they may have earned praise for bringing into lucid order and regularity the whole system of our Military expen- diture, and have framed good general orders for the strict discharge of the Soldier’s duty; but, with the exception of your gallant and amiable predecessor — the True Soldier, and the Soldier’s true friend—Sir Henry Hardinge, I do not recollect any one, during the last forty years, who made the health or the happiness of the human being the subject of due consideration. Your Lordship, however, has now commenced this good work, and I trust you will cause it to be continued, until you are indeed able to found thereon such measures as may effectually diminish the great loss of life an- nually experienced in our West India and other Colonies. It is to be most sincerely regretted that some officer in the medical department of the army was not deemed worthy of being recommended to your Lordship, as capable of discharging those duties which were assigned to Captain Tulloch. It has tended much to lower the department, already sufficiently low in the estimation of the public, and must prove most disheartening to every member of that department, to find a military subaltern earning promotion by the performance of a task that most especially belonged to the medical officer. Army medical men have now but few opportunities of earning either praise or promotion in or out of their depart-