Page 11 - The Story of the RAMC

Chapter III
“The Laurel Wreath”
In previous chapters we have seen how medical men, beginning as mere camp followers, gradually began to play an increasingly important part in the forces of the Crown. Even after the Crimea, however, they were for many years something of a separate ‘priesthood”’ without complete command of the hospital orderlies on whose skill and devotion their work so greatly depended.
It was in 1898 that all ranks became fused together into a single Corps, an event typified in the wreath of laurel which encircles our badge and finally brings the Crown and Serpent together.
On May 4th at a Lord Mayor’s banquet, Lord Lansdowne the Secretary of State, announced the proposed formation of the new Corps, on June 23rd Queen Victoria added her forthright signature on the top right hand comer of a Royal Warrant which signified her will and pleasure that a “Corps be formed styled the Royal Army Medical Corps”. On July 1st the Corps was born.
Then it was that medical officers discarded their courtesy, hyphenated ranks put on the same badges as the other ranks and assumed full executive and administrative responsibility.
Everyone is familiar with pictures of victorious generals returning in triumph through cheering crowds, their brows crowned with laurel. In ancient Greece however the
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