THE "ALL-WOMAN" HOSPITAL.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 523, 13 October 1915, Page 4

THE "ALL-WOMAN" HOSPITAL.

HERIOIC WORK IN STRICKEN SERBIA "When the war first broke, out, prejudice was naturally rife among the powers that be against All-Woman War Hospitals. The authorities had practically no use for hospital units "manaed entirely by women," as an Irishman- would say. But to-day many of us think differently. Somehow or other, despite the stubborn opposition they had almost everywhere to face, official consent was eventually given for the establishment of certain feminist units in the different war areas. Two of them, for instance — the Scottish Women's Unit and the Stobart and Field Hospital—are now at Kragujevatz, the military headquarters of Serbia. With what result? "While several of the other units at present in Serbia have contemplated disbanding on account of the lull in the fighting, these two all-woman hospitals have acquitted themselves so well that they simply cannot be spared! The field hospital founded by Mrs St. Clair Stobart, in fact, l*as proved so eminently useful in tending those who are sick among the civil population of Serbia—especially the women and children 'in outlying villages —that there

has even been talk of making it a permanency. -

The Linen Lady.

This Stobart Field Hospital s is certainly an Adamless Eden, if ever there was one. Here woman is mistress" of all she surveys, no man being employed 1 where a. woman will do. At first the scheme may strike one as a trifle fantastical. It seems, to say the least, ( rather unusual to find some of the most intellectual women of the day employed as orderlies in menial capacities. The charwoman-in-ehief to the .unit, for example, before she took to the washtub, was a noted archaeologist. The charming lady, in charge of the linen cupboard, again, has hitherto been known as a gifted novelist who writes with a Henry-Jahies-like finesse. The chief cook in her spare time is a student of Celtic literature, while her assistant is engrossed in botany. (Should any man come, to scoff,. however, he will-quickly stay to praise. The unit comprises seven doctors and surgeons, 20 trained nurses and 18 orderlies. Just think of their pluck 1 Some 45 Englishwomen in all, they have managed, practically unaided, first to rig up a mobile hospital of 65. tents in the hard, mud-caked fields of a primitive country like Serbia. Secondly, they have applied to this open-air encampment hygienic and sanitary measures that would do credit to many an indoor English hospital. .The Stobart camp not only includes for the patients' and stajS.':'Within the different, tents are !a fully-equipped operating theatre, an X-ray department, three kitchens, commodious stores, and several baths —all of them modelled on the most modern lines.

To visit one of these roadside dispensaries gives you an unutterably pathetic insight into the isolated lives of the Serbian peasants. Over 20,000 patients have been treated in an incredibly short time. From dawn till sunset, men, women, and children, some of whom have walked from hamlets 50 miles away, or, if too ill to walk, have come in ox-carts and travelled through the night, arrive at the dispensary, suffering from typhus, typhoid,- scarlet fever, diphtheria, and every other conceivable illness.

When I visited a Stobart dispensary 60 sick patients were strewn about the roadside waiting to be attended. One of them was a mother of a large family, the youngest of whom was 10 months old. She had walked 12 miles with a condition of the neck and throat that would make a civilised being think twice about crossing a room.' Having been given all possible remedies she started on her homeward way, unaccompanied. Another case was that of a grimly, stolid-looking peasant who had brought his two children suffering from diphtheria. His wife and two other children were lying dead at home. The serum injection may possibly have saved the surviving two; it will at any rate have spread the news that help has come to other stricken villagers. Although Mrs Stobart has run other All-Woman Hospitals in Bulgaria, Belgium, and France, this is her first field hospital. On her arrival in Serbia, she claimed that, quite apart from the fact that typhus patients fare best when treated in tents, the chief advantage of her new encampiwfliit) if used as a surgical hospital, was its mobility. On little more than half an hour's notice, the whole camp could be quickly

brought within reach of an advancing ov retreating army at almost any given point. She guaranteed, that even the manual work of pitching and moving the tents could be undertaken by her unit with little or no help from men. How, then reduced to practice, does her theory work out? From an unexpected quarter the unit was given a chance of showing how rapidly it can move. Just before the 5 a.Tn. reveille bell, the whole camp was aroused by the violent explosion of a bomb close at hand. They rushed out to find three aeroplanes —one Austrian and two Germans —encircling them overhead. Was the enemy bent on performing the heroic feat of .exterminating the Women's Field Hospital? For some little time it looked suspiciously like it. Then whirr, whirr —that old sound, familiar to . \Mrs Stobart and others of her unit who had been in Antwerp, was followed by a loud crash —and the usual smoke and debris. Fortunately, the bombs fell not within the camp, but a few yards from its outer radium. I

"Forewarned is * forearmed," said Mrs Stobart, as she told me this story. "Our white gleaming tents were evidently an excellent target, and obviously we had to contrive some means to frustrate the enemy's possible designs. We set to work on a'scheme of evacuation, and were quite glad to put4t into effect when we received from the military headquarters at 6 a.m., a few days later, a message that enemy aeroplanes had been sighted over the frontier and were expected to reach Kragujevatz in an hour's time. Within half an hour of receiving that message, we had cleared the hospital of 130 wounded soldiers. Those who could walk" or hobble had been sent with nurses and orderlies a kilometre along the road adjoining the main hospital tents, with instructions to lie down when aeroplanes were sighted, while the helpless cases were placed on stretchers on the automobiles and ox-carts, and taken in small groups along the main road to safe distances from the camp. The tents, too, were taken down, but we quickly put % them up again when another message came through that the aeroplanes had thought better of their intentions, and had turned back shortly after crossing the frontier. The wounded enjoyed the picnic, and were reins'talled in the hospital by 1 o'clock. The whole incident made a fine dress rehearsal. In any ease, we of our unit regarded it purely as part of the day's march."—Stanley Naylor, in the "Daily Chronicle."