"We hate war in this country: it and its results are an outrage on our aspirations. The ordinary man in the R.A.M.C. unit is  ̶  the ordinary man. His khaki and his Red Cross badges have altered him not an atom. But, like other ordinary men, while hating war he is able, when put to it, to stand up to the brutalities of war. Not quelling his hatred, he declines to allow it to choke his normal flow of common sense."  - Extracts from the recollections of Corporal Ward Muir RAMC, Nursing Orderly, 3rd London general Hospital.

Medical organisation within the British Army can be traced back to 1660 and the formation of the Standing Regular Army, when each regiment of infantry and cavalry was accompanied by a Regimental Surgeon and his assistant. -

Following the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the Army Medical Department underwent a major reorganisation under Sir James McGrigor, who had introduced significant changes to the army medical services during the Napoleonic Wars. He established a well-planned system of casualty evacuation, arranged for pre-fabricated huts to be sent from England, instituted large convalescent depots, which kept thousands of trained men in the field, introduced a systemof registering casualties, which forms the basis of medical statistical returns in use today, and also set up a Benevolent Fund and Widows and Orphans Fund.

Following the Battle of Waterloo, officers in the British Army enjoyed a relatively long period of stability and had the opportunity to enjoy the social benefits of life as an Army officer. When the Crimean War began in 1854, the medical and logistical support was organised by civilian departments, which often held meetings without any consultation with the army. The consequences were disastrous. Medical organisation was largely based on a peacetime arrangement of regimental hospitals. Although the medical officer was commissioned and wore the uniform of his regiment, he held no military rank and was entirely under the command of the Colonel of his Regiment. He had no trained staff, just a few men detailed to him from the Regiment, who had no medical knowledge or training but received instructions as he could give them.

The Director General, Sir Andrew Smith, urged the necessity of a medical corps and the War Office responded by collecting together 300 old army pensioners to form an ambulance corps. Shortly before their departure to the Crimea, Smith declared they could hardly carry themselves let alone care for the sick and wounded. Sadly, he was proved correct when many of them died of cholera and others turned to the consolation of alcohol

In 1857 the Medical Staff Corps was reorganised into the Army HospitalCorps, although it reverted back to its former name in 1884 and by 1898 therewere two distinct organisations within the Army Medical Services, the MedicalStaff Corps and the Medical Staff (i.e. the officers).

These two separate organisations were reorganised into one Corps, the Royal Army Medical Corps, by Royal Warrant on 23rd June 1898. With the formation of the RAMC medical officers were granted the same rank structure as the rest of the British Army and assumed full executive and administrative responsibility.

The Boer War highlighted the importance of medical care for the army; themedical services treated 22,000 wounded and a staggering 74,000 for dysenteryand typhoid fever alone. The advice of the new hygiene officers was ignored,and as a result the consequences were fatal; water purification was defective,sanitation deplorable and rations inadequate.

However, the Professor of Pathology, Sir Almroth Wright, along with Captain Leishman (later Lt-General Sir William Leishman, Director General Army Medical Services 1923-26), was working on an anti-typhoid vaccine.

Lessons learnt during the Boer War were not forgotten and the efficiency of the army medical services in the build-up to World War One was largely due to Lt-General Sir Alfred Keogh (Director General 1904-1910 and 1914-1918). His foresight and planning ensured that the medical services were recognised as an essential part of the British Army.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, the majority of transport was horse-drawn and organisation for casualty evacuation was based on a ‘chain of evacuation ’in which the sick and wounded were moved backwards by a series of posts; the regimental aid post, the collecting post, the advanced and main dressing station, the casualty clearing station and finally the general hospital either in France or England via hospital ship. At an early stage in the war, Casualty Clearing Stations were expanded into forward areas and in some cases could take up to 1,000 patients.

During World War Two technology enabled the RAMC greater access to mechanised land and air transport, allowing specialists and operating teams to get right to the front-line in an increasingly mobile war.

There were major medical developments pioneered by the army, such as the use of penicillin for the first time in the North African campaign and also the development of blood transfusion, which was crucial in wartime.

The end of World War Two saw the start of the Cold War. British troops were needed worldwide and National Service lasted from 1948 to 1962. Many National Servicemen served in Korea and Malaya, East Africa, Borneo and Cyprus, as well as the Suez operation of 1956.

The Army Medical Services has been involved in several theatres over the past 40 years, including the Falklands Conflict of 1982, the first and second Gulf Wars, as well as numerous other peacekeeping and humanitarian operations across the globe.

Colonel-in-Chief: The Duke of Gloucester

Corps Day: 23rd June

Date of Royal Warrant: 23rd June 1898

Current Representative Colonel Commandant: Brigadier Robin Simpson

Find out more about the RAMC

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