Medical Department

This department of an army, next to the commi ariat, is the most important of all the non-combatant sections. The surgical treatment of the wounded in actual fighting, and still more the combat with disease engendered by crowding, unhealthy stations, and the reckle habits of the soldiery, nece itate a large medical staff; for, on an average of the whole army, it is found that the rate of sickne is at least quadruple that for the civil population. In the British army every battalion, when at home or in the temperate zone, has a surgeon and an a istant-surgeon; when in India or the tropics, another a istant-surgeon is added. The medical department is governed by a director-general, who is a member of the War Office, and has charge of the surgical, medical, and sanitary arrangements of the army. In the United States every military post has at least one medical officer and sometimes two, as the nature of the climate or the strength of the command demands, all of whom are under the command of a surgeon-general, who ranks as brigadier-general, and is permanently established at Washington, D. C. He has full control over everything that pertains to the medical department of the army. Officers of the medical department are a istant-surgeons, with the rank of first lieutenants of cavalry the first five years of their service thereafter, till promoted to the grade of surgeon, when they receive the rank, pay, and emoluments of captain.