NationStates

Any idea how many doctors, surgeons and veterinarians should be in a Medical Legion supporting a Legion of 8000-8500 men (not counting other support personnel) and nearly 2000 horses and mules? I can't find much info regarding numbers, and stuff I do find seems to be conflicting. Having a Legion larger than a typical Roman one doesn't help either.

For doctors and surgeons, I was thinking three per century (or per one hundred men) with 5 orderlies each. That would be around 85 doctors with 255 orderlies per Legion. Same with surgeons. No idea if that's too high or low, if the numbers should be different for either doctors or surgeons, etc

To everyone who responded, thanks for the advice. Will be sticking with it and a few Brasilian derivatives that I base my tech on anyway.

Alimeria- wrote:And something completely unrelated

Completely unrelated and glorious as fuck.

Fordorsia wrote:Any idea how many doctors, surgeons and veterinarians should be in a Medical Legion supporting a Legion of 8000-8500 men (not counting other support personnel) and nearly 2000 horses and mules? I can't find much info regarding numbers, and stuff I do find seems to be conflicting. Having a Legion larger than a typical Roman one doesn't help either.

For doctors and surgeons, I was thinking three per century (or per one hundred men) with 5 orderlies each. That would be around 85 doctors with 255 orderlies per Legion. Same with surgeons. No idea if that's too high or low, if the numbers should be different for either doctors or surgeons, etc

Long story short, no one knows, but there's a reasonable chance that there weren't any real trained doctors among the legions (I know, I was surprised too), but rather the soldiers themselves treated each other, and there seems to have some who were better at it than others and so were usually sought out, as well as potentially some surgeons in training who had tagged along for the experience.

Medieval armies typically had one surgeon for every 400-500 men, while the Byzantines apparently had one surgeon for every 240 men (period unknown to me) and 8-10 corpsmen for every 310 men (early 6th century).

Aqizithiuda wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:Any idea how many doctors, surgeons and veterinarians should be in a Medical Legion supporting a Legion of 8000-8500 men (not counting other support personnel) and nearly 2000 horses and mules? I can't find much info regarding numbers, and stuff I do find seems to be conflicting. Having a Legion larger than a typical Roman one doesn't help either.

For doctors and surgeons, I was thinking three per century (or per one hundred men) with 5 orderlies each. That would be around 85 doctors with 255 orderlies per Legion. Same with surgeons. No idea if that's too high or low, if the numbers should be different for either doctors or surgeons, etc

Long story short, no one knows, but there's a reasonable chance that there weren't any real trained doctors among the legions (I know, I was surprised too), but rather the soldiers themselves treated each other, and there seems to have some who were better at it than others and so were usually sought out, as well as potentially some surgeons in training who had tagged along for the experience.

I don't know about no one knowing. People seem pretty sure at least on the basics.
It seems that soldiers looking after each other, relying on personal abilities, was the case before the second century, but not really after then. The medici might not of been actual doctors, but they would have been much better than your average grunt.

At least I can handwave it and have more professionally trained doctors and surgeons. After all, it isn't a perfect copy of Rome.

Medieval armies typically had one surgeon for every 400-500 men

Poor bastards

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
Long story short, no one knows, but there's a reasonable chance that there weren't any real trained doctors among the legions (I know, I was surprised too), but rather the soldiers themselves treated each other, and there seems to have some who were better at it than others and so were usually sought out, as well as potentially some surgeons in training who had tagged along for the experience.

I don't know about no one knowing. People seem pretty sure at least on the basics.
It seems that soldiers looking after each other, relying on personal abilities, was the case before the second century, but not really after then. The medici might not of been actual doctors, but they would have been much better than your average grunt.

At least I can handwave it and have more professionally trained doctors and surgeons. After all, it isn't a perfect copy of Rome.

Medieval armies typically had one surgeon for every 400-500 men

Poor bastards

https://www.academia.edu/557446/Roman_m ... sideration

I seem to recall that modern armies have a similar doctor:soldier ratio.

Aqizithiuda wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:

I don't know about no one knowing. People seem pretty sure at least on the basics.
It seems that soldiers looking after each other, relying on personal abilities, was the case before the second century, but not really after then. The medici might not of been actual doctors, but they would have been much better than your average grunt.

At least I can handwave it and have more professionally trained doctors and surgeons. After all, it isn't a perfect copy of Rome.



Poor bastards

https://www.academia.edu/557446/Roman_m ... sideration

Neat. I won't read it all but I get the idea. Still, having a small professionally trained medical Legion is fine by me. Gotta be better than Rome somehow.

I seem to recall that modern armies have a similar doctor:soldier ratio.

To be fair doctors or "doctors" back then would have been completely bogged down in patients thanks to no modern medicine, tools or other magic stuff. Then again they would have just brute forced an operation if they were that desperate so I guess the absence of morphine wasn't a big deal.

Also modern infantrymen have all sorts of medical contraptions themselves that they can use to patch someone up quickly. I wouldn't say it's the best thing to compare medical care now with medical care from centuries ago just because the ratio is similar.


So, a surgeon will lead 3 orderlies and 2 collectors (these guys have the fun job of finding and retrieving wounded soldiers if other soldiers didn't and removing dead patients, as well as doing any general jobs the surgeon needs doing). Doctors will have just the 3 orderlies. I suppose I'll have 2 vets with 3 orderlies each per cavalry cohort.
So with one doctor and surgeon per century, that would come to 69 Doctors with 207 Orderlies, 69 Surgeons with 207 Orderlies and 138 Collectors, 8 vets with 20 orderlies, and I guess they would all be led by a Medical Centurion (as opposed to a Senior Centurion who leads infantry cohorts) who himself has 3 orderlies (I'm assuming he'd be an actual trained doctor). That all comes to 722 in a Medical Legion.

This isn't as boring as I thought it would be.

Super clear and easy to understand picture

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
https://www.academia.edu/557446/Roman_m ... sideration

Neat. I won't read it all but I get the idea. Still, having a small professionally trained medical Legion is fine by me. Gotta be better than Rome somehow.

I seem to recall that modern armies have a similar doctor:soldier ratio.

To be fair doctors or "doctors" back then would have been completely bogged down in patients thanks to no modern medicine, tools or other magic stuff. Then again they would have just brute forced an operation if they were that desperate so I guess the absence of morphine wasn't a big deal.

Also modern infantrymen have all sorts of medical contraptions themselves that they can use to patch someone up quickly. I wouldn't say it's the best thing to compare medical care now with medical care from centuries ago just because the ratio is similar.


So, a surgeon will lead 3 orderlies and 2 collectors (these guys have the fun job of finding and retrieving wounded soldiers if other soldiers didn't and removing dead patients, as well as doing any general jobs the surgeon needs doing). Doctors will have just the 3 orderlies. I suppose I'll have 2 vets with 3 orderlies each per cavalry cohort.
So with one doctor and surgeon per century, that would come to 69 Doctors with 207 Orderlies, 69 Surgeons with 207 Orderlies and 138 Collectors, 8 vets with 20 orderlies, and I guess they would all be led by a Medical Centurion (as opposed to a Senior Centurion who leads infantry cohorts) who himself has 3 orderlies (I'm assuming he'd be an actual trained doctor). That all comes to 722 in a Medical Legion.

This isn't as boring as I thought it would be.

Super clear and easy to understand picture

I don't see the point in having both surgeons and doctors, and I really think that you should have one surgeon per two centuries and three corpsmen per century.

Aqizithiuda wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:

Neat. I won't read it all but I get the idea. Still, having a small professionally trained medical Legion is fine by me. Gotta be better than Rome somehow.



To be fair doctors or "doctors" back then would have been completely bogged down in patients thanks to no modern medicine, tools or other magic stuff. Then again they would have just brute forced an operation if they were that desperate so I guess the absence of morphine wasn't a big deal.

Also modern infantrymen have all sorts of medical contraptions themselves that they can use to patch someone up quickly. I wouldn't say it's the best thing to compare medical care now with medical care from centuries ago just because the ratio is similar.


So, a surgeon will lead 3 orderlies and 2 collectors (these guys have the fun job of finding and retrieving wounded soldiers if other soldiers didn't and removing dead patients, as well as doing any general jobs the surgeon needs doing). Doctors will have just the 3 orderlies. I suppose I'll have 2 vets with 3 orderlies each per cavalry cohort.
So with one doctor and surgeon per century, that would come to 69 Doctors with 207 Orderlies, 69 Surgeons with 207 Orderlies and 138 Collectors, 8 vets with 20 orderlies, and I guess they would all be led by a Medical Centurion (as opposed to a Senior Centurion who leads infantry cohorts) who himself has 3 orderlies (I'm assuming he'd be an actual trained doctor). That all comes to 722 in a Medical Legion.

This isn't as boring as I thought it would be.

Super clear and easy to understand picture

I don't see the point in having both surgeons and doctors, and I really think that you should have one surgeon per two centuries and three corpsmen per century.

One deals with illnesses and such and the other deals with injuries. Is there enough overlap that the surgeon could do both?

Would a corpsman just be a doctor, or a "doctor".

And I assume the surgeon having 3 orderlies is fine?

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
I don't see the point in having both surgeons and doctors, and I really think that you should have one surgeon per two centuries and three corpsmen per century.

One deals with illnesses and such and the other deals with injuries. Is there enough overlap that the surgeon could do both?

Would a corpsman just be a doctor, or a "doctor".

And I assume the surgeon having 3 orderlies is fine?

In a military context, the surgeon is good enough, and doctors aren't likely to want to sully themselves by dealing with common soldiery.

Corpsmen = semi-skilled soldier retrieving the wounded from the battlefield and perhaps treating them if the doctor is busy with more complicated things.

I, personally, would just use corpsmen as orderlies because there isn't any real evidence of them in a military context in this time period, and because I like my armies lean.

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
I don't see the point in having both surgeons and doctors, and I really think that you should have one surgeon per two centuries and three corpsmen per century.

One deals with illnesses and such and the other deals with injuries. Is there enough overlap that the surgeon could do both?

Would a corpsman just be a doctor, or a "doctor".

And I assume the surgeon having 3 orderlies is fine?

With Ancient and/or Middle Ages medicine there is going to be more overlap than in the modern times. There understanding of surgery really wasn't advanced enough to need a separate specialized education.

Aqizithiuda wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:
One deals with illnesses and such and the other deals with injuries. Is there enough overlap that the surgeon could do both?

Would a corpsman just be a doctor, or a "doctor".

And I assume the surgeon having 3 orderlies is fine?

In a military context, the surgeon is good enough, and doctors aren't likely to want to sully themselves by dealing with common soldiery.

Corpsmen = semi-skilled soldier retrieving the wounded from the battlefield and perhaps treating them if the doctor is busy with more complicated things.

I, personally, would just use corpsmen as orderlies because there isn't any real evidence of them in a military context in this time period, and because I like my armies lean.

Great. Means I can get rid of collectors too. Or should I keep them to still collect the wounded and to assist the surgeon with non-graphic errands?

I shall use corpsmen then. What should I name them? Can't really call them corpsmen in 50AD.

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
In a military context, the surgeon is good enough, and doctors aren't likely to want to sully themselves by dealing with common soldiery.

Corpsmen = semi-skilled soldier retrieving the wounded from the battlefield and perhaps treating them if the doctor is busy with more complicated things.

I, personally, would just use corpsmen as orderlies because there isn't any real evidence of them in a military context in this time period, and because I like my armies lean.

Great. Means I can get rid of collectors too. Or should I keep them to still collect the wounded and to assist the surgeon with non-graphic errands?

I shall use corpsmen then. What should I name them? Can't really call them corpsmen in 50AD.

Medici or Medica.

Aqizithiuda wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:
Great. Means I can get rid of collectors too. Or should I keep them to still collect the wounded and to assist the surgeon with non-graphic errands?

I shall use corpsmen then. What should I name them? Can't really call them corpsmen in 50AD.

Medici or Medica.

Would Surgeon Assistant not suffice? I don't plan on going with the Latin naming scheme, which is why I've had difficulty coming up with names for the units. I'll try to keep things in English and as understandable as possible.

Edit: Actually I only need a name for Century, since cohort and Legion are already English words (or at least commonly used in English)

Edit 2: Just realized Century is also English or common enough in English to not bother. Fuck it.

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
Medici or Medica.

Would Surgeon Assistant not suffice? I don't plan on going with the Latin naming scheme, which is why I've had difficulty coming up with names for the units. I'll try to keep things in English and as understandable as possible.

Edit: Actually I only need a name for Century, since cohort and Legion are already English words (or at least commonly used in English)

Edit 2: Just realized Century is also English or common enough in English to not bother. Fuck it.

Medic, then. It's just the anglicised form of medici.

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
Medici or Medica.

Would Surgeon Assistant not suffice? I don't plan on going with the Latin naming scheme, which is why I've had difficulty coming up with names for the units. I'll try to keep things in English and as understandable as possible.

Edit: Actually I only need a name for Century, since cohort and Legion are already English words (or at least commonly used in English)

Hundred obviously.

Aqizithiuda wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:
Would Surgeon Assistant not suffice? I don't plan on going with the Latin naming scheme, which is why I've had difficulty coming up with names for the units. I'll try to keep things in English and as understandable as possible.

Edit: Actually I only need a name for Century, since cohort and Legion are already English words (or at least commonly used in English)

Edit 2: Just realized Century is also English or common enough in English to not bother. Fuck it.

Medic, then. It's just the anglicised form of medici.

Thanks for the help

Actually I don't suppose there is an issue with their commander being Medical Centurion, is there?

Immoren wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:
Would Surgeon Assistant not suffice? I don't plan on going with the Latin naming scheme, which is why I've had difficulty coming up with names for the units. I'll try to keep things in English and as understandable as possible.

Edit: Actually I only need a name for Century, since cohort and Legion are already English words (or at least commonly used in English)

Hundred obviously.

Eh, using a number in the context of naming units is a bit silly. Even if century does mean 100

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
Medic, then. It's just the anglicised form of medici.

Thanks for the help

Immoren wrote:
Hundred obviously.

Eh, using a number in the context of naming units is a bit silly. Even if century does mean 100

I use Anglo-Saxon versions of modern words. Tien, fiftig, hundred, fifhundred, thusend, etc.

Aqizithiuda wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:
Thanks for the help



Eh, using a number in the context of naming units is a bit silly. Even if century does mean 100

I use Anglo-Saxon versions of modern words. Tien, fiftig, hundred, fifhundred, thusend, etc.

Disgusting.

Also from my edit. Any issues with Medical Centurion?

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
I use Anglo-Saxon versions of modern words. Tien, fiftig, hundred, fifhundred, thusend, etc.

Disgusting.

Also from my edit. Any issues with Medical Centurion?

I don't think so.

Aqizithiuda wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:
Disgusting.

Also from my edit. Any issues with Medical Centurion?

I don't think so.

Great.

Another damn question: With a surgeon per two centuries and three medics per century, I'm assuming they aren't actually attached to any specific units, right? At least not the surgeons? Also would the medics be under the command of the surgeon, or if they are attached to a century, under the centurion?

Fordorsia wrote:

Aqizithiuda wrote:
I don't think so.

Great.

Another damn question: With a surgeon per two centuries and three medics per century, I'm assuming they aren't actually attached to any specific units, right? At least not the surgeons? Also would the medics be under the command of the surgeon, or if they are attached to a century, under the centurion?

The Byzantines took medics from within their unit and had them follow along behind to pick them up off the battlefield. I've taken this to mean that they were still part of their tagma, but just performing a different role in combat.

Aqizithiuda wrote:

Fordorsia wrote:
Great.

Another damn question: With a surgeon per two centuries and three medics per century, I'm assuming they aren't actually attached to any specific units, right? At least not the surgeons? Also would the medics be under the command of the surgeon, or if they are attached to a century, under the centurion?

The Byzantines took medics from within their unit and had them follow along behind to pick them up off the battlefield. I've taken this to mean that they were still part of their tagma, but just performing a different role in combat.

So they're part of the Medical Legion under the Surgeons and Medical Centurion, just working as close to the shit as possible. Thanks a lot.

Done
The Head Surgeons are the most qualified people fixers in the army, and are also the Medical Centurions' second in command.

Would there be any use in treating common legionaries in basic first aid? With the weapons of the day, I'd guess that they would do stuff like put pressure on stab/cut wounds, not pull out darts or arrows which might be acting as plugs, and whatever other medical knowledge they might have(unlike something such as not moving someone with a spine injury, or washing your hands before touching a wound).

Schwere Panzer Abieltung 502 wrote:Would there be any use in treating common legionaries in basic first aid? With the weapons of the day, I'd guess that they would do stuff like put pressure on stab/cut wounds, not pull out darts or arrows which might be acting as plugs, and whatever other medical knowledge they might have(unlike something such as not moving someone with a spine injury, or washing your hands before touching a wound).

Basic first aid of that level can be taught in a couple of hours, easily. Most of the soldiers would probably have already picked it up, though that isn't a certainty. The surgeon for each unit could just give them a lecture on what to do for a stabbed comrade every couple of months, or years, and things would be fine. It would be a funny lecture to listen to though, probably filled with things that are woefully wrong and/or superstitions.