Note 155 — OF Military Hospitals.

The Roman Generals seem to have sent their Sick and Wounded into Towns, in the same Manner as is done by those of the present Time. For we read in Cæsar’s Commentaries of this Method having been practised on more Occasions than one. In the sixty-second Chapter of the third Book, de Bello Civili, we have the following Passage: “Itaque nulla interposita mora, sauciorum modo & ægrorum habita ratione, impedimenta omnia silentio prima nocte ex castris Apolloniæ præmisit, ac conquiescere ante iter confectum vetuit. His una legio missa præsidio est.”—And immediately after, in chap. lxv. “Itaque præmissis nunciis ad Cn. Domitium Cæsar scripsit, & quid fieri vellet ostendit: præsidioque Apolloniæ cohortibus iv. Lissi i. tres Orici relictis; quique erant ex vulneribus ægri depositis; per Epirum atque Arcarniam iter facere cæpit.”

And in the twentieth chapter, de Bello Africano, we read: “Labienus saucios suos, quorum numerus maximus fuit, jubet in plaustris deligatos Adrumentum deportari.”

It would be a right Measure, in the Beginning of every War, to settle by a Cartel that military Hospitals on both Sides should be considered as Sanctuaries for the Sick, and mutually protected; as was agreed upon between the late Earl of Stairs, who commanded the British Troops, and the Duke de Noailles, who commanded the French in the Campaign in Germany in the year 1743. See Dr. Pringle’s Preface.