canvas bottom, a pillow, two self-locking traverses, which lock under the stretcher and keep it open. There are four wheels of lignum vitæ, on which the stretcher rolls into the ambulance waggon, and which act as legs when used as a camp bedstead, a use to which all army stretchers are liable. It weighs 32 lbs., and costs at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, about 3. Carter & Co., 47, Holborn Viaduct, London, can supply it at the same price.

ENGLISH ARMY REGULATION STRETCHER, 1884 (Surgeon-Major Faris).

To aid the bearers it has two leather slings, one at either end, which the bearers put over their neck like a milkman's yoke, and so relieve their arms of part of the weight.

Fig. 9 is a picture from Surgeon-General Longmore's book of a field stretcher, designed by Baron Percy, and the equipment of the stretcher-bearers themselves is also shown.

It will be seen that the stretcher, when not in use, is divided between two bearers, who, when it is to be used, rig it up by passing the poles through the wooden endpieces carried over the knapsack, and put on the canvas bottom.

It would be absurd to think that we have in any way arrived at finality in our stretchers. We have little doubt that a stretcher will one day appear, to which the existing pattern will bear the relation of a country cart to a bicycle. The stretcher we may see will not be designed either by an

ambulance amateur or an official artillery carriage-builder, but rather by a skilled mechanical engineer, well acquainted

Fig. 9.

RECOURS A

BARON PERCY'S STRETCHER; BEARERS IN MARCHING order.
(After Longmore.)

with steel and it uses, and knowing what is needed to be produced. The men who have built our spider's-webs, called

Fig. 10.

THE SAME, WITH STRETCHER FITTED FOR CARRYING WOUNDED.
(After Longmore.)

bicycles, must surely be able to construct a light and useful field stretcher. It should be so light as to be carried by one

man with ease when folded up; the side bars or poles should be of steel, so strong as not to yield if used as a camp bedstead. The canvas should be detachable, so as to be easily cleaned, and perhaps carried by the bearer, rolled up like a soldier's great-coat. The traverses should be light, yet strong enough to keep the sides firmly apart. The legs would need careful study, and all the parts should be completely interchangeable. The pillow need only be an empty case, buttoning up, and ready to be filled with hay or grass in the field. The leather slings could be replaced by light steel chains, so strong as to hold up the stretcher and the patient, if the stretcher was hung up in a luggage van for travelling. The weight should not be more than 15 to 20 lbs., if so much.

While writing of stretchers, we may here describe FURLEY'S LOWMOOR JACKET, which seems to be a singularly useful article. In the shafts of mines, sewers, and other narrow places, it is not possible to remove an injured person in the recumbent horizontal position.

Mr. Furley has designed a jacket which encircles the injured person's chest and abdomen, and which has strong back pieces which run up behind the patient's back, and cross over an iron bar, which is slipped by iron rings over the handles of the stretcher. There is also a strong support passing between the legs, and fastening to the jacket. The legs are kept in their place by a strap-and

additional support is given by a web-stirrup, into which the sound foot can be slipped if desired.

The patient can thus be drawn up vertically out of the mine or sewer, or lowered into a boat, without injury to the wounded part.

Extempore stretchers are made out of rifles and soldiers' great-coats, or the valise may be hung between two rifles and a kind of stretcher so improvised. A number of improvised seats for carrying injured men have been previously pictured—vide Fig. 2.

HAMMOCKS have been frequently used to carry injured persons. They are quite unsatisfactory for such a purpose, as the sides close in very much when slung, and they offer no secure resting-place in case of broken limbs. After the battle of the Alma, many of the wounded were carried to the shore in hammocks slung on oars; but this wretched makeshift is only permissible when, as on that occasion, regular ambulance arrangements were completely absent.

In mountainous countries various methods of carrying sick and wounded in baskets or chairs borne on the backs of mountaineers are in vogue. The patient faces to the rear, and sitting in the chair, is carried over the ground like an ordinary load.

In Eastern countries, where wheeled-carriages, owing to bad roads, cannot travel smoothly, there is an immense variety of means of human transport by bearers. Any one who has travelled in India will remember the many patterns of such conveyances that exist.

There is the Dhoolie, a closed-in litter, carried by four bearers, with two others as a relief. This highly commodious means of carriage has formed the staple sicktransport in all our Eastern wars. Carriage for 10 per cent. of an Indian army is generally allowed during a campaign, and this would imply some 600 bearers with a fighting battalion 1000 strong.

To-day in India the dhoolie-bearer class is gradually disappearing before the progress of railways and horseconveyances, and it may be necessary as time goes on to

preserve the caste absolutely for military purposes, as around our Indian frontier wars are almost perpetual, and the dhoolie-bearer is much needed.

There are many modifications of the dhoolie in existence, and the number of new dhoolies invented is considerable. Surgeon-Major Bourke, of the Army Medical Department, has invented a dhoolie which fulfils many needs. It can be used as a stretcher, and a hospital bedstead as well as a dhoolie, and the poles and covers of a few dhoolies form also a tent for the sick.

The DANDY, a cot slung from a pole, and carried by two men, with two more as a relief, was much used in the

second Affghan war, and it will probably be as much utilised in future campaigns.

Dhoolie-bearers accustomed to the plains dhoolie carry the hill dandy with ease.

Palanquins and jhampans are modifications of the dandy and dhoolie, types common in India.

We have in an earlier chapter recommended that stretchers should be kept in every street in our great cities, in a "stretcher-locker," of which the police and certain residents should have keys. Every railway station should also have one, also every guard's-van in all passenger trains. No public school, factory, institution, or asylum