GENEALOGY AND PARENTAGE. When I remember with what buoyant heart, Midst war's alarms and woes of. INTRODUCTION 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' by Ambrose Bierce, is one of the most widely read, widely anthologized, widely taught, and widely admired short. Reminiscences of the Civil War: Electronic Edition. John Brown Gordon, 1832-1904. War Story of the Canadian Army Medical Corps. This online edition is dedicated by Mary Mark Ockerbloom at A Celebration of Women Writersto Mary Houston (1. N/S, C. A. M. C. Foster, C. B., Director General Medical. Services, Overseas Military Forces of Canada. GEORGE ADAMI, M. D., F. R. S., (Temporary Colonel C. A. M. C.)A. D. M. S. VICTORIA STREET, WESTMINSTER, S. W. ANDTHE ROLLS HOUSE PUBLISHING CO. LTD. BREAM'S BUILDINGS, FETTER LANE, E. C. BORDEN, G. C. M. G., P. C., ETC.,PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA. Eighty Years And More: Reminiscences 1815-1897 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) New York: T.The following family tree includes the known descendants of Archibald Stark, one of the earliest settlers of Manchester NH. George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic and polemicist whose influence. The Project Gutenberg EBook of The River War, by Winston S. Churchill This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. TO some the call of adventure, to others the fighting spirit of the race, but to most the duty of service appealed. Fresh from the avocations of peace and untrained at first in the art of war, they went forth strong, joyous, eager, confident. Valour and heroism were never more truly symbolized than in the story which their deeds have given to the world. One could not return from such a visit without renewed courage and strengthened determination. From the wounded in the hospitals one gained at least an equal inspiration in witnessing many a triumph of the spirit over the dull pain and monotony of long, weary months. How far the attempt has succeeded the reader must judge. Official documents are apt to be painfully meagre in regard to the very matters which the historian needs for a full presentation of any particular happening: they may at times be wholly wanting. The Officer in the position to give the fullest details may constitutionally be unwilling to set pen to paper: may put down a line or two of bald official data, when for the credit of his unit and the officers and men under him, he should have set forth a detailed statement of events; on the other hand, some officer concerned in actions of subordinate importance may note these so clearly and interestingly that perforce the historian quotes at length from his description. If, therefore, too full credit is given to certain units and individuals, too little to others, the fault must to no small degree be attributed not to the historian, but to the material at his disposal. So also the limits set to the size of the volume have limited the publication of operation orders and the minuti. What has impressed the writer is the difficulty in securing accurate information even within a few months of the event: the difficulty, therefore, that must confront the historian who writes years after the event: the value of such a . He has studiously endeavoured throughout to acknowledge the sources of his information. One essential source has, however, been left out, and he would here call attention to the fact that for events in France as they affected the C. A. M. C. To General Carleton Jones and Colonel Lorne Drum he is indebted for much of the information upon which has been based the chapter upon the rise of the C. A. M. C. Foster, C. B., Director- General Medical Services, Overseas Military Forces of Canada Frontispiece Salisbury Plain Facing p. Bullet- wounds 1. North of the Aire- La Bass. Admission tent 2. No. 1 Canadian Stationary Hospital, West Mudros 2. Bailleul, Kemmel and Ploegsteert Area Facing p. WAR STORY OF THE C. A. M. C. For sixty years and more after the conquest, Canada was too poor and too thinly populated to be able to establish and support medical schools, or to attract well- trained doctors, either from the old country or from the States to the south. As a result, the surgeons who came over with the British regiments found their services in such request that many of them elected to remain when their regiments were recalled, and in all the older centres of population we meet with the same story: these old Army doctors became the recognized heads and leaders of the profession. Their connection with the Service gave them an immediate standing in the young community. They brought with them the old- world ideals of professional conduct, ideals strengthened, and indeed raised, by their military training and associations; and, as Major- General Fotheringham has well pointed out, 1 it is largely owing to their influence that Canada has escaped the haphazard legislation, defective training and irregular medical practice which have cursed so many of the States of the Union to the south. When at last the population had increased sufficiently to maintain and justify the establishment of medical schools, we find that in Lower Canada two out of the four founders of the Montreal General Hospital and of the Medical School which in a few years became the Medical Faculty of Mc. Gill College, were old Army doctors; that another Army surgeon, Widmer, . Similarly in Acadia it was the old Army doctors, who in 1. British regiments at Halifax and elsewhere provided for two generations the foremost practitioners of Nova Scotia, and of New Brunswick, when in 1. So long as the Mother Country with its troops garrisoned and protected these, there was no urgent need for provincial militia. Militia regiments there were, it is true, here and there, but these existed more for ceremonial than for practical purposes; and their medical organization was the outgrowth of pre- Napoleonic conditions, when the regimental medical officer was still looked upon, along with the chaplain, as, if not the servant, certainly the nominee of the colonel of the regiment. Organized medical service was wholly wanting. It looked forward to a long era of peace. Can there be more striking evidence of the essentially pacific nature of the Anglo- Saxon peoples than the fact that the long- drawn line of boundary between the United States and Canada has no patrol? It was in June, 1. English speaking peoples celebrated the completion of a century of peace among themselves. We speak of the long frontier of some eight hundred miles that Russia had to protect against Germany and Austria: what is that to the three thousand miles of the Canadian frontier? Thus the Canadian Militia grew somewhat slowly. The Mother Country was most considerate; for strategic reasons it retained Halifax and Esquimalt for some forty years, until, under Admiral Fisher's naval scheme, Halifax, Esquimalt, Bermuda and St. Lucia were no longer employed as naval bases. As militia regiments were raised in each province, each had its surgeon- general chosen from among the local practitioners, but there was no Army Medical Service proper; nor was any course of preliminary instruction required for those who became Regimental Medical Officers. Gradually a small permanent medical force developed. Certain permanent military units had to be established at what may be termed strategic points – at Quebec, Kingston, St. John's, P. Q., Winnipeg, etc., and with the garrisons came the need for military hospitals and their personnel. In this way it came about that certain local practitioners obtained appointments over long years as medical officers to these garrisons, attending to the troops in addition to their private practice; but these rudiments of an Army Medical Service were for a generation so inconsiderable that there was no Director- General or Headquarters Medical Staff at Ottawa. There had been little or no preliminary organization. With the raising of the Field Force, it became essential to appoint a staff of medical officers. Bergin, M. P., of Cornwall, Ontario, was appointed Surgeon- General at Ottawa, there to control the medical branch and advise the Minister of Militia; Dr. James Bell (later Professor of Surgery, Mc. Gill University) was appointed Surgeon, to take charge of one of the hospitals (the Field Hospital with General Sir F. Middleton's Division), and under him were six assistant surgeons; these in addition to the Regimental Medical Officers attached to each regiment, and a number of Toronto and Montreal medical students, who volunteered to go to the front as hospital dressers. There were only between four thousand and five thousand troops actively engaged in the field, and the preparations, therefore, had to be on a much smaller scale than we have become accustomed to in the great war. The campaign was conducted, it will be remembered, in a virgin country during the spring and early summer months, so that the amount of sickness was inconsiderable; there was an entire absence of typhoid, malaria and dysentery; even diarrhoea was almost unknown. Nor was the number of wounded such as to overtax the hospital accommodation provided at Saskatoon, Battleford and elsewhere. In other words, despite their lack of previous experience or previous training, the Medical Service rose to the occasion, which fortunately did not, medically speaking, become grave. Bergin remained titular Surgeon- General, and three Deputy Surgeons- General were appointed: Drs. Roddick (Montreal), Ryerson 4 (Toronto) and Tobin (Halifax). But these all continued their civil practice, as did the whole service. The Regimental Medical Officers, it is true, were there, chosen by the officers commanding each militia regiment, and gazetted in due course as Surgeons- Major: that rank they retained whatever the length of their service. Not a few believed that they were ornaments to their regiments, and that they fulfilled all that in decency could be demanded of them if they appeared, in a uniform becoming progressively tighter, at each annual church parade. The only active members of the force were the semi- permanent officers, the local practitioners attached to the garrisons; these were, in general, appointed Principal Medical Officers at the annual camp of the district, and, as such, gave courses of instruction. There was, in fact, little or no organization. Between camps the permanent medical officers had no control over the regimental medical officers. Medical equipment for the annual camps, preserved between times at the District Medical Stores, were, to say the least, meagre. In this year a definite Medical sub- department of the Militia was created, with a Director- General at its head, having his headquarters in Ottawa. From 1. 89. 6 dates thus the development of the Canadian Army Medical Corps.
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