Excerpt from The Medical Department of the United States Army From 1775 to 1873
With rare common sense, their first enactment provided for an examination of all persons asking appointment as surgeons.
On the eighth of May, 1775, they ordered:
"That the President pro import, Doctor Church, Doctor Taylor, Doctor Holten and Doctor Dunsmore be a committee, to examine such persons as are, or may be recommended for Surgeons for the Army, now forming in this Colony.
Resolved; That the persons recommended by the Commanding Officers of the several regiments, be appointed as Surgeons to their respective regiments, provided, they appear to be duly qualified, on examination."
Doctors Whiting, Bailies, Hall and Jones were subsequently added to this committee, and a proviso adopted that any three present should constitute a quorum.
The following extract from Thaeher"s "Military Journal during the Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783," will show the manner in which this original board of medical examiners performed their duty.
"On the day appointed, the medical candidates, sixteen in number, were summoned before the board for examination. This business occupied about four hours; the subjects were anatomy, physiology, surgery, and medicine. It was not long after, that I was happily relieved from suspense, by receiving the sanction, and acceptance of the board, with some acceptable instructions, relative to the faithful discharge of duty, and the humane treatment of those soldiers, who may have the misfortune to require my assistance. Six of our number, were privately rejected as found disqualified. The examination was in a considerable degree close, and severe, which occasioned not a little agitation in our ranks."
After the battle of Breed"s Hill a hospital was established at Cambridge, "in several private but commodious houses," and Dr. John Warren, a brother and pupil of Dr. Joseph Warren, who fell while commanding the troops in that battle, was placed in charge. This gentleman had already acquired a fine reputation, both for professional skill and humanity to the sick. He was soon after succeeded by Dr. Isaac Foster, of Cambridge, who was afterwards Deputy Director General. About this same time a hospital was also established at Watertown, and another at Roxbury under charge of Dr. Isaac Rand, and on the twenty-seventh of June a fourth, for the exclusive care of small-pox patients.
It may be mentioned here, that in all the legislative enactments of this period, the word "hospital" is not used in the sense of a building for the treatment of the sick and wounded, but in a wider signification, as denoting the whole medical management of the war, or in other words, that "department" or "bureau" of the service having charge of all matters pertaining to medicine and surgery.
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