CHAPTER X.

WHEELED AMBULANCE EQUIPMENT AND SICK-TRANSPORT VEHICLES DRAWN BY HORSES.

Ambulance Equipment Waggons-The Surgery Waggon of the Bearer Company-The Pharmacy Waggon of the Field Hospital— The Store Waggon of the Field Hospital-The Kitchen Waggon of a Field Hospital-The Water Cart-The Laundry WaggonThe Electric Light Waggon-The Army Regulation Sick-transport Waggon-Its construction-The Austrian Red Cross Sicktransport Waggon—The United States Rucker plan of arrangements of Seats and Stretchers—Civil Ambulance Sick-transport Waggons - The Howard Sick-Transport Waggon - Davy's Ambulance Waggon-The Furley Sick-transport Waggon-The Atkinson-Philipson (Newcastle) Sick-transport Waggon-Infectious-disease Sick-transport Waggons.

IN all civilised countries where made roads are found, wheeled vehicles drawn by horses will always be the most important element in conveying aid to the injured, and in conveying the injured themselves to a place of shelter.

These wheeled vehicles divide themselves into two main classes: viz. ambulance equipment waggons, and ambulance sick-transport waggons; the former being the conveyance used to carry the supplies, medicines and appliances needed for the relief of the sick, the outfit of the hospital, the medical stores, the water supply, the cooking arrangements, and all the various details of hospital interior economy; while the ambulance sick-transport waggons are intended for the carriage of wounded or diseased men only. We shall deal with the ambulance equipment waggons first in order.

A. Ambulance equipment waggons.

The various waggons included under this head may be detailed as follows.

1. The Surgery Waggon of the Bearer Company. 2. The Pharmacy Waggon of the Field Hospital.

3. The Equipment Waggon of the Field Hospital. 4 The Kitchen Waggon of the Field Hospital.

5. The Water Cart of the Bearer Company and Field Hospital.

6. The Laundry Waggon of the Field Hospital.

7. The Electric Light Waggon of the Ambulance Column.

THE SURGERY WAGGON OF THE BEARER COMPANY.

If we were asked to say what vehicle in the medical corps of an army in the field is, after the ambulance sick-transport waggon, for the wounded soldier the most essential, we should say the surgery waggon of the bearer company.

It is in this waggon that in all modern armies is carried those first essential articles of equipment needed to establish the all-important dressing station. These articles would be the operating tent to shelter the patient and the surgeons during the operations; the operating table itself, the surgical knives and bandages, the all-important cooking utensils for the life-saving soup, and such blankets as may be needed to shelter the wounded if they lie on the field at night.

The reader must remember the functions of the bearer company, and must study its position in the war diagram forming the frontispiece. It is to the bearer-company dressing-station all the divisional wounded are carried for further dressing and for food. If this waggon be incomplete, the wounded in their hour of supreme suffering will not be suitably cared for. If it be complete, all that is urgently needed by the surgeons will be there.

In our army we use an ordinary general-service (lockunder) waggon, used in the everyday transport work of the service as our surgery waggon. The vehicle is identical, it is its contents which are peculiar.

All the equipment is detached, and is merely packed in boxes and baskets into the waggon, and in this procedure we must all agree. So peculiar and so different are all our English wars, that all specially fitted waggons must be reduced to a minimum, and our loads of every kind be reduced to the mule-carrier standard, and so packed into varying waggons. The waggon then needs no special description; it is made to take to pieces and to pack up on board ship; it has four wheels (two lock-under), and is drawn by two horses, and may either be driven postillion fashion or from the box. It costs at Woolwich Arsenal,

Fig. 25.

SURGERY WAGGON OF THE AUSTRIAN RED CROSS SOCIETY, BY LOHNER OF VIENNA.

empty and unequipped, £127 12s. and weighs empty about 17 cwt.

The Operating Tent supplied to the surgery waggon is an ordinary bell tent of the army pattern, price £5 5s. It is light, it is true, but it has no other special qualifications. It is quite unfit for operating in, for the doctors have not room to turn in it, and the central pole is in the way.

In the German service a special pattern of "operating tent" is issued; it has a ridge pole, two upright poles, and can have one side raised like a verandah, forming an open shelter for the operating work.

Fig. 25 is a picture of the surgery waggon of the Austrian Red Cross Society, made by Lohner of Vienna. By comparison with our English surgery waggon it is light

and very easily moved. It does not take to pieces like our waggon. It costs, without any fittings, 750 florins, Austrian. We have here a plate of the same waggon, with its operating tent pitched over the waggon, turning the whole space into an operating theatre. This system of arrangement is criticised, as of course we cannot always secure ground suitable for the waggon and the tent. But the plate shows the size and character of the operating tent and how much more suited it is for the surgeon's work. Some such tent is needed in the English service. The price of this Austrian tent is 400 florins, Austrian currency.

The Operating Table.-Two kinds of operating tables for ambulance work exist in our service; one pattern for the bearer company, and one pattern for the field hospital. The latter, which costs 10 guineas and weighs 77 lb., is very elaborate, and is modelled on civil peace-hospital operating tables; the bearer-company table is like an ordinary camp table, folding up in a compact way, and it seems quite useful enough for war work. It can be used as an ordinary office table if not needed for its special duty, and this is an important fact to be remembered, for, despite the popular idea to the contrary, army surgeons are not always operating, and a table that would be interchangeable seems to us to be more generally useful for war work. Price of operating table of bearer company, £3 Ics; weight, 52 lbs.

The instruments, medicines, medical comforts, cooking and feeding equipments are all carried in eleven separate boxes or baskets, which fit in two layers into the waggon. Some of these boxes and baskets are of extraordinary dimensions; the F basket, which contains the reserve dressing, being amongst baskets a very leviathan, and not suited for many of our frontier wars. In the ideal surgery waggon, every box and basket should be ruthlessly cut down to mule-pannier size (80 lb. weight), the number of them if needs be increased; but with our petty wars we must have a general service equipment, and our loads must be available for coolie carriage, mule carriage, &c., and waggon carriage. This can only be done by choosing a small general service unit of size and weight, and fearlessly compelling all loads to be modelled upon it. Such a surgery waggon with uniform mule-pannier loads can be very easily produced, as only a few baskets and boxes need change.

It is impossible to dwell too much on the need of having efficient and ready means of cooking broths for the wounded. This battle-field aid is all-important, and whatever develops it should be encouraged. The baskets of the bearer-company surgery waggon, empty, cost £46 15s., and are supplied at present by Savory and Moore, New Bond Street, London.

The A, B, and C canteens cost about £23, and the two medical-comforts boxes about £7 5s.

2. The Pharmacy Waggon of the Field Hospital.—This is found in most European armies. It is the general medicine store and dispensary of the field hospital, and the waggon used in our army is singularly complete in every detail, and well worth studying. It is somewhat like a baker's cart with covered-in roof, and has numerous drawers and slides holding drugs and dressings. There is a dispensing table at the rear of the waggon, and a pent-house cover over it. Its price without the drugs or instruments is about £217. In this, as in all war equipments, we must measure all things by our peculiar campaigns. We English,