carried upstairs, into the wards of an hospital, or into the narrow alleys of a town, the stretcher is made to be easily detached from the iron frame. When so detached, it is kept off the ground by four short iron legs, which are fixed to the side poles at the head and foot.

This litter can be obtained from the Assistant Secretary, Order of St. John, Clerkenwell, E.C.

Those who desire further information concerning wheeled litters should write to the firm of Lipowsky-Fischer (Manager: C. Maquet) of Heidelberg, for their copiously illustrated catalogue of ambulance equipment of various kinds. It contains a vast number of interesting ambulance and invalid-furniture illustrations.

CHAPTER VIII.

AMBULANCE EQUIPMENTS CARRIED BY MULES OR

HORSES.

Need of good Mule Equipment for our varying wars-The English Medicine Panniers-Mule Cacolets-Mule Litters-Ideal Muleloads for a Field Hospital.

PACK-ANIMALS have always been much used with armies in the field. They can travel on any mountain path, and it is essential to have much of the military medical matériel of such description as can be carried easily in this manner. The English army is still deficient in good mule equipments from a medical point of view. We have no field hospital equipment regularly organized for mountain campaigns, or for countries which, if not mountainous, are not traversed by regular roads.

Practically if we once had a good mule-borne mountain hospital equipment it would almost completely equip us for our own little wars, for we have only to give a mule pannier to two coolies to carry in campaigns like Ashanti, or to hang two panniers over a mule as in Affghanistan, or to pack four panniers on a Maltese cart for a campaign like Egypt or the Soudan, and to stow away 8 or 12 mule panniers in a field waggon for any European war. If once we could so equip a 25-bed unit hospital, the difficulties of our many wars would be solved; for, after all, a 200-bed hospital only needs eight 25 bed-units of equipment. We would need a pair of mule-panniers completely equipped as a cook-house load. Its pots, pans, and various utensils, complete for 25 men and the load itself, forming a distinct unit. We also need a 25-man clothing-load, viz. towels,

sheets; and feeding-utensils, plates, knives, cups, salt-cellars, for 25 men. Eight such loads would equip a 200-bed hospital.

We also need an "office pannier," containing all the records, stationery books, forms used in war-time. The

panniers themselves forming a writing table and a seat, as needed.

We also most urgently need a "Conservancy load," consisting of the picks, shovels, latrine-vessels, bed-pans, latrine screens-needed, and so urgently needed, by the sick in war time-the frame to form the latrine seats and to

MULE PANNIERS OPEN TO SHOW CONTENTS. (After Longmore.)