Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Surgery, Charlatanry, War, Status

    Responds to a letter in the Medical Times describing the role an assistant surgeon in a regimental hospital in ensuring that a convicted army private is 'marked with the letter D' (i.e. branded 'Deserter') before being committed to jail. Claims that medical officers in the Army perform the 'operations' of William Calcraft, the celebrated executioner. Thinks army surgeons in the Crimea bear the same relation 'to the Provost-Marshall which Mr C[alcraft] bears to the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex'.