CHAPTER XXXVII.

HOSPITALS AND SICK QUARTERS.

1.

An Officer, accompanied by the Surgeon or one of his Assistants, is always to go with the sick sent from any one of Her Majesty's Ships, to see that they are conveyed to the Hospital or Sick Quarters, with as little inconvenience as possible, and that they are properly received there.

2.

An Officer is never to be sent to a Hospital, Hospital Ship, or Sick Quarters, except in cases of urgency, without the Commander-in chief, or the senior Officer present, having signified on the Sick Voucher his approval of his being so sent, the necessity of which is first to be ascertained by him; but it, notwithstanding such approval, the Inspector-General, Deputy Inspector-General, or Surgeon of the Hospital, Hospital Ship, or Sick Quarters, shall be of opinion that he ought not to have been sent, they are, nevertheless, to receive him, and immediately represent their opinion, with their reasons for it, to the Commander in-chief or senior Officer.

3.

Whenever any person belonging to one of Her Majesty's Ships is sent to a Hospital or to Sick Quarters for cure, a Pay Ticket, Sick Voucher, and the usual certificate of service and conduct, containing with the utmost correctness all the particulars therein respectively required, are to be sent with him; and if the patient be an Officer, a certificate, setting forth the date to which he was last paid, and the deductions to be made from the next payment due to him, must be attached to his Ticket.

Officers are to be allowed to take with them such clothes and effects as they may think necessary; but Men and Boys arc to be required to take all their clothes and effects; and Marines, in addition, on the Home Station, their arms and accoutrements. An inventory of whatever maybe so taken, is to be made out very correctly on the back of the ticket, and inserted also in the Sick Voucher, which latter document is to be signed by the Officer who accompanies the patient to the Hospital; and such Officer is to see that the clothes and effects, as well as the papers referred to in this Article, are delivered into the charge of the person at the Hospital whose duty it may be to receive them.

4.

At places where there is a Naval Hospital, all persons serving in Her Majesty's Ships who may be afflicted with Erysipelas, or infectious diseases, are to be removed to it as soon as possible.

5.

Every Captain will receive, as opportunities may offer for communicating, from the Medical Officer or Agent of a Hospital or Sick Quarters, an account of all the patients sent from his ship for treatment, who shall have died, or have been discharged, run, or otherwise disposed of, that the circumstances relating to them may be properly noted on the Ship's Books.

6.

Every Captain is to receive such recovered patients, whether of his own or any other Ship, as the Superintendent, Medical Officer, or Agent of a Hospital, or any Agent of Sick Quarters, shall send to him; but should any of them be considered unserviceable, he is to make application for their being surveyed, but is not to refuse receiving them unless he be immediately going to sea, and the holding of a survey be impracticable without detaining the Ship; in which case, the reasons for refusing them shall be stated in writing, and be signed by himself and the Surgeon of the Ship, and the statement shall be sent to the principal Officer of the Hospital or Sick Quarters, in the same boat with the patients.

7.

When Seamen or Marines are cured at any Hospital or Sick Quarters they are to be returned to the Ship to which they belong, if she be at the Port; but when, in consequence of her being absent, they are sent on board another Ship, the Captain of that Ship is not to enter them as part of her complement, except he receive an express order to do so, but is to bear them on a list of Supernumeraries for Victuals, and is to return them to their proper Ship whenever he meets her, or to send them when an opportunity offers; but if the complement of that Ship shall then be complete, or if she shall have left the Station, he is to enter them in the Ship he commands, if her complement be not complete; but if it be, he is to bear them as disposable supernumeraries. In whatever Ship such Men shall be entered as part of the complement, or as disposable supernumeraries, they are to be borne in that Ship's Books for wages from the time of their discharge from the Hospital.

8.

Whenever a patient is sent to a Hospital, or Sick Quarters, particularly on a Foreign Station, the clothes which may be necessary for him should be issued, if possible, from the Ship he belongs to; but if there be a necessity for their being issued at the Hospital, or Sick Quarters, an account of them is to be sent with him on his Discharge Ticket to the Ship which receives him, and they, together with any other deductions appearing on the said ticket, are to be charged against his wages in the books of the first Ship in which he shall be borne as part of the complement, or in which he shall receive his pay.

9.

Whenever Petty Officers, Seamen, Marines, or Boys are invalided from Naval Hospitals, the date of their invaliding, and the disease for which they are invalided, are to be inserted in the proper place on their parchment certificates, and the senior Medical Officer of the Hospital is to affix his signature thereto.

10.

If there shall be at any time an absolute necessity for sending Sick or Wounded Officers, Men for Boys on shore in a Foreign Port where there is not a Naval Hospital, nor any person appointed by the Admiralty to take care of them, the Commander-in-chief, or the senior Officer present, or the Captain, if the Ship be alone, is, if circumstances will admit of it, to hire lodgings, or, if that be impracticable, to order tents to be erected for their reception, made of the old sails of the Ship, and is to appoint the Surgeons best qualified in the Squadron to attend them; and they are to be victualled as nearly as circumstances will admit, in conformity with the directions contained in the Surgeon's Instructions, relative to the Sick mess on board Ship, but if circumstances shall make the erection of tents and the attendance of the Surgeons impracticable, the Commander-in-chief, or the senior Officer present, is to contract with some proper person to supply the patients with lodgings and provisions of the description before directed, and is to appoint a well-qualified Medical Practitioner of the place to attend them, at a sum to be specified, according to circumstances, for each patient for medicines and attendance.

The person so appointed is to be furnished with the established Forms, agreeably to which he is to keep his accounts, and he is to be informed that he will be required to make a declaration to the correctness of them. The patients are to be sent to him with the usual documents, which he is never to deliver to them, but is to send to the Captain of the Ship to which they may be discharged, and he is to obtain from such Captain a certificate of the day on which the patients are received on board; but if any patient shall die or desert, he is to note the date of his death, or desertion, on the Ticket, and to send it, with a statement showing how his effects have been disposed of, by the first safe opportunity, to the Secretary of the Admiralty, for the Accountant-General.

Whenever patients shall be so sent on shore, the senior Officer in the port is frequently to direct the Captains, with their Surgeons, to muster them, and to see that they are properly taken care of, and that they are not kept on shore after being sufficiently recovered to return to their Ships; and he is, with the assistance of a Paymaster, to examine very carefully the accounts of the Surgeon and Contractor at the usual times for sending them home, - and, as circumstances may require, to certify their correctness, or to point out those parts to which he shall see cause for objecting, without which certification the accounts shall not be passed.

11.

Before sending any patients from Her Majesty's Ships to Sick Quarters on shore (excepting to Naval or Military Hospitals, or to established Surgeons and Agents), a statement is, in each case, to be required from the Medical Officer of the Ship (for transmission to the Medical Director-General of the Navy), approved by the Captain, of the particular nature and effect of the disease, and of the reason why the patient could not be safely treated on board; and when there is no Medical Officer in the Ship, the same information is to be required from the professional person to whom the patient is sent.

Proper vouchers for the payments made for the subsistence and medical attendance of the patients, as well as for the hire of lodgings for them, are to be sent to the Accountant-General of the Navy, for reference to the Medical Director-General, - care being taken that no more expense be incurred than what may be absolutely necessary to promote the comfort of the patients. Bills for medical attendance on the Home Station are, however, to be sent into office for approval before being paid.

12.

Persons recently discharged from a Hospital, or recovered from sickness on board, are, as far as possible, to be excused from duties in exposed situations, until their health and strength shall be re-established.

13.

Distressed British subjects arriving in England in Ships of War, may be admitted into our Naval Hospitals in cases of extreme urgency and severity, when they cannot be received in the Union Workhouse of the place as casual poor, or until they can be conveyed to their proper parish.

14.

When an Officer or other person belonging to Her Majesty's Service dies on board, at any place where there is a Naval Hospital, the body is to be sent to the Hospital for interment, - with a certificate from the Surgeon, countersigned by the Captain, stating the name, rank, and age of the deceased, the date of his death, and the disease of which he died, - unless the friends of the deceased wish to undertake the burial at their own expense, in which case the body is to be delivered up to them.

15.

Officers and others, belonging to Her Majesty's Service, dying at any place where there is not a Naval Hospital, may, unless their friends wish to undertake the burial, be interred at the public expense; but in no case will the Admiralty sanction a payment of more than Seven Pounds, from the public funds, for the funeral of an Officer, or Three Pounds for that of any other person. Proper vouchers, for such payments as the Captain may direct to be made under this head, are to be transmitted by the Paymaster with his cash account.