AN ILLUMINATING LECTURE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 73, 19 December 1917, Page 3

AN ILLUMINATING LECTURE

WOMEN'S WAR HOSPITALS

; MRS. ABBOTT AT THE PIONEER I . . " CLUB

Yesterday afternoon meniberß of the' Pioneer Ulub had tlio pleasure of lislenuig to Mrs. G. F. Abbott speak upon •uie work 'which the Scottish Women's Hospital Units have been doing in and behiiiu the fiifTjig lines of this great war. Mrs. Abbott is the wife of the well-lino™ scholar, autiior, and journalist, whoso travels in the East have been depicted in several books, and she herself is well known as a speaker upon social and oivic work in Great Britain. Sirs. W. F. Massey presided at yesteraay's gathering. . A great deal of what Mrs. Abbott said in the courso of her address has already appeared in Tub Dominion in the course of an interview reprinted from an issue of the "Sydney Morning Eerald." Dr. Elsie Inglis, whose death from exhaustioii, has been recorded recently, was the founder of those hospitals, and boforo the end of 1914 the first of these units, under Dr. Alice Hutchinson, was fighting tho typhus' plague'' at Calais. In that short time the doath returns in connection with this unit were tho lowest of any in the city. Another unit, under Dr. Frances Ivens, was at work in the Abbaye de lloyaumont, near Chantilly,and since that time its work has quad•rupled,' at the request of the French military authorities, to whom the work of these British, women was a revelation. The work at the hospitals was ontirely done by women—women doctors, women orderlies, women chauffeurs, women cleaners-up, and so on. No matter how menial, how sordid tho work (and bow menial some of it was can hardly be imagined by women in this country), these women did it with hearts as gallant as were those of the soldiers who fougnt in the fiercest battles of the war. Possibly more so, because, although over and over again their work brought them right into the firing lines, there was none of the excitement of onslaught. The history of the experiment which Was tried or instituting a camp hospital (under canvas), which went with General SarraiFs force to Salonika, was outl-'ned. That a woman's hospital should have become attached to an Expeditionary Force at the special instance of the commanding general was a'tremendous tribute. It became the model'hospital at Salonika. ' The work, however, that has aroused the imagination of the world once it has become known is that done for the stricken Serbians, who have suffered more almost than the Belgians. Early in 1915 a staff of dootors, nurses, dressers, and orderlies arrived at Kragujevatch. Typhus _ was :aging everywhere,- and the Serbians were dying like flies. >out of 200 medical men only two-thirds were left, and they, too, were being stricken by tho plaguo. Three nurses had died (later tho number of those buried in Serbian soil increased to nine), and the misery and wretchedness and suffering were unspeakable. The tragic retreat before the Austrian armies over tho Montenegrin mountains will forever be one of the landmarks of history. With them went these great-hearted Scottish women; cheering them, helping them, concealing their own sufferings and out-' •vying with each other in self-sacrifice. Of them cne lias said: "Their physical courage was second to none; their moral courage has never been equalled)" Another unit, under Dr. Alice Hutchinson, which remained with the Serbiaus, was taken prisoner by the Ausfcriaiis. It was sent _to Southern Austria and, its members Heated as ' common prisoners. So fine, however, was the physique of these British women that their guards complained that when thoy were out exercising them they could not keep up with them, so younger guards had to be posted to look after them. The work of the unit that went to Rumania and shared in a retreat but little less disastrous than that of tho Serbians was also outlined. There, as wherever their work oalled them, their courage and self-saorifice were magnificent. Of Dr. Elsie Inglis, who was with this unit, Mrs. Abbott spoke in moving terms. What she must have suffered in that last terrible retreat, so that she reached Newcastle only to die a 1 day or two afterwards, she ' with her iron strength of body and invincibility of will, could only be faintly imagined. That she would get her unit through all the dangers that confronted it was a foregone conclusion to all who knew her.. One of the decorations that had been conferred upon her was that of the Order of the White Eagle by tho Prince of Serbia, the highest honour ever conferred upon a woman. The 200-bed hospital at Monastir, where Dr. Lilian Cooper, Dr. Agnes Bennett, and Miss Bedford were working, was also spoken of. The motor transport in connection with this hospital was remarkably good, although the country was mountainous and difficult in the extreme. The work of Dr. Mary Blair (a New Zoalander) for Serbian refugees who reached Corsica was also referred to. At Ajaccio they were fed, clothed, and cared for till theBritish and French Governments took charge of them. At the conclusion of her lecture Mrs. Abbott spoke of the splendid recognition that had been given to the work of the Scottish Women's Hospital Units by the .different Governments of the countries in which they had worked, and of the decorations which many of the workers had had conferred upon them. In the words of a wounded poilu: "These are the good angels who bring us to Paradise, angels disguised with mud and grease; angels with haggard, tired faces and their hands stained with blood; angels among tho cesspools and. filth fighting the typhus, epidemic" ' •