Tableau des infirmités qui nécessitent la réforme. Manuscript

France. Conseil de Santé. Tableau des infirmités qui nécessitent la réforme, et doivent empêcher l'admission au service militaire [title on leaf 2]. Manuscript document addressed to the Minister of War, signed by nine members of the Conseil de Santé including Antoine-Auguste Parmentier (1737-1813), Antoine Dubois (1756-1837), Guillaume Daignan (1732-1812), Nicolas Heurteloup (1750-1812), Pierre Bayen (1725-98) and Vincent Jean Paul Biron (1758-1817). [4]ff. (2 bifolia), the last leaf blank, fastened along central fold with silk ties. Paris, 15 brumaire de l'an 2 de la République [5 November 1793]. 318 x 206 mm. Light soiling and spotting, first bifolium partially split along central fold, but very good.

Elegantly written official document from the French revolutionary government's Conseil de Santé to the Minister of War (Jean Baptiste Noël Bouchotte, 1754-1840), calling for the need to reform the French army's medical regulations and providing a tabulated list of infirmities disqualifying soldiers and prospective recruits from serving in the military. "[The list] will be able to rectify the arbitrariness that too often governs the issuance of sick leave, and will restore to workplaces and farms the many citizens who are no doubt worthy by virtue of their Republicanism to fight for liberty, but who, because of their infirmities, overload the armies rather than increase their strength" (f. 1; our translation). The "Tableau des infirmités" includes blindness in one or both eyes, deafness, goiter, pulmonary disease, hernia, hemorrhoids, sciatica, loss or paralysis of a limb, lameness, leprosy, scurvy, epilepsy and bad incisor or canine teeth—this last because soldiers used their front teeth to tear open gunpowder cartridges.

Among the signers of this document were Antoine-Auguste Parmentier, best known for promoting the potato as a food source in France; Nicolas Heurteloup, chief surgeon of the Grande Armée under Napoleon; Guillaume Daignan, author of one of the earliest studies of puberty among Europeans (see Garrison-Morton.com 7806); Antoine Dubois, head of maternity services to Napoleon and his wife Marie Louise; Pierre Bayen, chemist and member of the Académie des Sciences; and Vincent Jean Paul Biron, secretary of the Commission de Santé.