[1798]. 4to, pp. [ii], 103, [1] blank; including one table within text; aside from some occasional light marginal soiling, a lovely bright copy; with neat manuscript annotation to margin of p. 1; stitched as issued in the original pink wrappers, spine slightly torn with small loss towards tail, with old tape repair at head (though discrete), upper cover dated in manuscript in a contemporary hand, covers a little soiled but otherwise an appealing, wide-margined copy. Rare Rochefort imprint of an executive order containing newly issued regulations relating to the organisation of the health services of the French Navy and naval hospitals. Rochefort was an important Atlantic seaport and base for the French navy. This detailed documents describes in detail how hospitals should be organised and run, outlines the provision of medical assistance on board vessels, as includes a section dedicated to the running of ‘des écoles de santé de la marine, et du mode d’instruction’. This includes instruction on the order of courses, staffing, and the requirement that each have a library and a cabinet of natural history. The order concludes with a detailed list of the various remedies and medical instruments that each ship of the Republic were required to carry.
As such the document provides an insight into the state of French Revolutionary military health and medical practice, and to the education of medical staff. The considerable upheaval of the recent years, not only at home but during the Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary wars, had seen the loss of huge numbers of ‘Officiers de Santé, a less qualified medical role created in 1793. A manuscript petition previously handled, signed in the same year as the present decree, 1798, by fifteen ‘Officiers de Santé in Rennes, revealed that the situation on the ground was often chaotic and extremely challenging. The need to bring order to medical services, and train new students to fill such positions was paramount, as the present order highlights.