Talk:Army Medical Department regimental coat of arms

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Heraldry and vexillology

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Problem[edit]

I started to change the caption on the top image (which says "U.S. Army Medical Department (AMEDD) regimental coat of arms, ca. 1863") to "The ca. 1863 Medical Corps Coat of Arms". (This is what the AMEDD website calls it.) But the US Congress made official the designation "Medical Corps" only in 1908 (although the term had long been in use informally among the Medical Department's regular physicians), so the image depicted could not officially have been called the "Medical Corps Coat of Arms" in 1863, because the MC didn't yet exist! I suspect that the website is just wrong & the CoA was the "Medical Department" CoA in 1863. Anyway, I will leave it as is. Valerius Tygart (talk) 15:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discounting the ambulance corps, which was a temporary construct and more an attachment than organic to the Medical Department, everyone in the Medical Department was a doctor in 1863. There was no need to define a medical corps in law because the medical department was defined in law, and it was all doctors. There were enlisted soldiers attached, but they weren't part of the Medical Department until the Hospital Corps was created in 1887. There weren't other officer branches until the Nurse Corps (Female) was established in 1901 and the Dental Corps (1911) and Veterinary Corps (1916). Doctors wore at various times either M.S. (Medical Service) or M.D. (Medical Department) as their insignia. It was the Medical Department Coat of Arms in 1863, even though there were only doctors in the Medical Department. Hope this helps explain it. Eltrace (talk) 00:30, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]