Page 12 - The Story of the RAMC

laurel wreath stood for very much more than victory in war, it was awarded also for outstanding merit in the arts of peace ... It was given to philosophers, poets, writers and doctors, Aesculapius himself is recorded as having been “crowned with laurel”.
More than this, the laurel was the only prize given to the athletes who won their events in the original Olympic games .
It has, therefore, a very special significance for the RAMC whose work in the treatment and prevention of disease has to be carried on without interruption with equal efficiency in peace as well as war.
Laurels won in War:-
The infant Corps had not been in existence more than three months before it received its baptism of fire in the war in the Sudan where it won golden opinions from Lord Kitchener, but a sterner trial soon followed when, in 1899, the “Gentlemen in Khaki” were ordered South and sailed for the war in South Africa. During the campaign six Victoria Crosses were won, including that awarded to Captain Martin-Leake who had given up his hospital appointment to join up as a trooper in the Hertfordshire Yeomanry and was later severely wounded while serving as medical officer in the South African Constabulary under Lieut-Colonel Baden Powell. He was later to become the first man in history to win the Victoria Cross twice over.
This war, more than any before, brought home to the higher command the fact that, in battle homage paid to Aesculapius, the god of medicine, was scarcely less important than that due to Mars, the god of war; for during this campaign the medical services dealt with 22,000 wounded while over three times that number, 74,000 were treated for dysentery and typhoid fever alone, the latter disease accounting for 8,000 deaths.
But the ‘back-room boys’ of the RAMC had not been idle. Sir Almroth Wright, Professor of Pathology at our medical school at Netley and Captain Leishman aided by our laboratory technicians were working on an anti-typhoid vaccine. Captain Leishman, who had been company officer of No 4 Company at Netley when the Corps was formed, was to become Lieut-General Sir William Leishman, Director General, Army Medical Services (1923–1926). As a result of their work this devastating disease was reduced to negligible proportions in two world wars.
Fortunately the lessons of the South African War were not forgotten in the years which followed. This was, in large measure, due to one of the great figures in our history, Lieut-General Sir Alfred Keogh, who was Director General from 1904 until 1910. It was he who organised the medical services of the new Territorial Force and in a hundred and one ways saw to it that the Corps retained its honourable place among the forces of the Crown .
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