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AUG. 5, I9I61 AN ECHO, rHM1:023A I9r I ZTA JUNI explailned in the British Note to the United States Ambassador, of any wheeld vehicles at all? Still, would even the five German clergy were allowed to reside in this country roughest of journeys be really for them than being uninternied and to minister to German prisoners of war. He worse sympathized very deeply with the proposal, and anything that subject to the untender mercies of a German officer? The could be done would be done. In a written answer, on the patients themselves, at any rate, had no doubt. The devil sarne day, Lord Rob)ert Cecil said that the British Government was worse than the deep sea, which, after all, might not regretted that it was still unable to support the proposal for a prove unkindly. coilference of Red Cross representatives of the Belligerent Powers in a neutral country, similar to that held in Stockholm So tlle commanding officer and his remaining staff between representatives of Russia and the Central Powers, to instantly set to work again. The civilian station-master discuss, and, if possible, determine, a common basis upon managed to find a stray engine and three or four vans, and which prisoners of war should be treated, detained, exchanged, these having been made as comfortable as possible in the or transferred. In reply to Sir Henry Craik, he promised time available, the patients were hand-carried to the publication of the most recent reports upon prisoner camps in Great Britain drawn up by members of the American Embassy. station, and the extemporized hospital train steamed out On August 1st lie said that negotiations were in progress for just in the nick of time. the repatriation or internment in a neutral country of all In the event the decision proved fully justified, for British civilian prisoners of war now in Germany, whether- within twenty-four hours the patients, seemingly none the invalids or not. worse for the experience, were safely lodged ill another hospital 100 miles away. This was the only hospital which had to face quite so crucial a test, but several otlhers had adventures of a similar TIE_WAR. kind; in fact, all the hlospitals wlhich came out witlh the original Expeditionary Force led a pillar-to-post existence AN ECHO. for several weeks after their first arrival. The military A FRENCH provincial newspaper a slhort time ago contained situation at the time clhanged and recbanged so quickly a brief account of a picturesque incident which is worth that the D.M.S. of the Expeditionary Force had to keep on further record, if only as a useful reminder of a not too moving his medical units, whatever tlheir nominal -tatus. well known past. It must have been a worrying time for everybody, and It was tlhe public presentation of the insignia of Lady not least for those who were finally responsible for the of Grace of tlle English Order of St. John of Jerusalem to success of all the arrangements, worst of all, perhaps, for the Motlier Superior of a convent school in a town within those battalion, field ambulance, and otlher medical officers the war zone. The reason of the ceremony was the con- who during tlle course of the fighting retreat fou-nd their duct of this French woman in the month of August, 1914, choice lay between saving tlleir own skins and sharing at a moment when in the eyes of the population of the the fate of the wounded men in their charge. Of these invaded provinces all seemed lost save honour. several with whom the writer is personally acquainted A British medical unit which had taken up its quarters barely escaped being pistolled in cold blood, the Germans in her pensionnat had had to evacuate so quickly as to be choosing to regard them as would-be spies. forced to leave behind it all its equipment and belongings, Too little has as yet been heard of thlis first chapter of including the rifles and packs of its patients. the medical history of the war. On most occasions tllose Hardly had the train in which the men were placed left who look back can see how things might have been much tlle station before the Germans entered the town. One better managed; on the presentt one wonders how they of their first steps was to issue an order that, under pain were half as well managed as they were. For it was the of deatlh, everything left behind by tlle British and troops unexpected that always arrived, and it arrived with should be handed in forthwith. puzzling celerity. No sooner were hospital bases formed But to this order the Mother Superior determined to bid than they lhad to be abandoned, and tlle casualties-as also defiance. Her late guests were the allies of her cOuntry; the loss of medical personnel-exceeded all calculations they had been doing noble work. Why hand anything of based on previous wars. In addition, tlhe military organiza- theirs to the bullying, threatening Huns? Intent on the tion of the French railways still had to be completed; the well-being of their patients they had no time even to remove few hospital trains in France did not half meet the needs their flags-the Red Cross Pennant and Union Jack. Tiley of tlle French themselves, and the British forces, in were as sacred as the tricolor of her own country; these common with their allies and the -enemy, began the at least she must try to save. So the flags she gave to a campaign dependent in the main or horse-drawn transport Sister, an-Englishwoman by birth, to hide among her for all medical and other field form-ations. clothing, the patients' arms and accoutrements she buried Wl4en it came the Germans' turn to recoil tlhings in the convent graveyard, and the hospital equipment she began to settle down, but it was not until the Belgian hid in cellars, whose very existence she then contrived to frontier had a'ain been reached and the long-drawn-out conceal by brick and mortar and whitewash. She managed first battle of Ypres was well over that moments of strain in short to conceal everything but beds and mattresses, and anxiety ceased to be the daily portion of mnaniy officeis for which no hiding place could be found, and to keep them of the R.A.M.C., and especially of its administrators. safe until, the town being reoccupied, she was able to hand Althouglh tllis early period was one of great difficulty, it them over to tlie French authorities. was also one of muclh progress. By the time relatively The hospital in question was one of the general hospitals smooth water had been reached-that is, towards tlhe end -which came out with the original Expeditionary Force. of December, 1914-most of the present lhospital bases It was sent up immediately on its arrival to whatwas and connecting evacuation lines had been successfully then the advanced base, and not being able to secure any organized, and the RIA.M.C. had gained and lhad commenced one building sufficiently large for its purpose, it had dis- to utilize a long-desired power, namely, that of providing -tributed its beds in several buildings. The principal of for the transport of its patients from field units to rail- tllese was tlle convent school mentioned. It hbad only heads by vehicles directly under its own control, and been at work about a week wlhen the fall of Namur upset specially built for this purpose. the scheme of the Allies' campaign and the backward Also on the therapeutic .or executive side progress had movement commenced. been considerable. The introduction of antitoxin in- At this time tlhe hospital had some 500 cases on its jections as a routine first-aid measure had begun to lessen hands and the advance of the Germans was so rapid that materially the incidence of tetanus, and the tlhralls of the hospital had to be left behind wlhen the town was peace-time experience had so far been shake.n off that it evacuated by the allied forces. Those in charge of it was nearly everywhere recognized that the primary aim managed to get away all the lighlter cases in batches, of treatment must not be aseptic healing but effective together with the sisters and tlle majority of the per- drainage. sonnel, but they still had 45 very serious cases on their hands when news came that the Germans might be AUSTRO-GERMAN EXPERIENCEiS. expected at any moment. It seemed at first as if these patients, together with the AN OUTBREAK OF PURULENT STOMATITIS. personnel in attendance on them, must be allowed to fall RUMPEL1 has described a serious outbreaki of stomlatitis into tlle hands of the enemy. They were for the most among Russians in a prisoners' camp. Thse disease was. part grave surgical cases, hardly evacuable in the best of confined to a draft of new prisoners and broke out two days circumstances. How could they be moved from a town after their arrival. There wvere 12 cases on the first day. now lacking any suitable transport, indeed seemingly void X Mue6nclz. mcd. WocId., January 18th, 191g. 2." narnm I I 9 2 UNDWAL JOVItMM CASUALTIES IN THE, -MEDICA.L SERVICES. [Am. 15, 1916 192 MDLI CASUALTIES IN THE MEDICAL SERVICES. :AUG. 5, 1916 60 o0 the second, 169 on'tlie third, and 200 on the fourth recovered from sickness and? wounds and wlho have been day.

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