The Doctor.

Observer, Volume XXXV, Issue 50, 21 August 1915, Page 15

The Doctor.

"A ND so you want, to know about " \ the Red Cross work," he i * said. "Well, we're uncommon glad there IS a Red Cross Society. You see that air bed—where they're just moving the man on, to it? We have to thank tlie Red Cross 1 people for things like thatair beds and pillows, and all the little luxuries that we want for the bad cases. It has made a wonderful difference, being able to get things." I spoke of having seen cases other than actual wounds. "We get a number of neurasthenic oases/ he said. "There's one sitting over by the door there. The constant shell' fire on them in tlie trenches does it, and they come in partially deaf, absolutely apathetic and depressed—pitiable cases. They get right in time, of course, but they all need absolute quiet and careful treatment in convalescent homes, if ever they are to be pulled back to normal health again. And here and there a. case of insanity— they go through awful experiences before they come in here, and it's too much for the nerves with some .men. The insanity cases recover, as a rule*—it's the neurasthenic cases that are the trouble. One can't rouse them." * He drifted into talk of the fittingup. of the hospital, in the first days —when the line was blocker! and •there.were only two clear days to prepare. "There was a carpet in here," he said, "a thick pile thing that we had rolled up and! carried out—it took about forty men to carry it away. This makes a fine ward—l ventilate it a bit too much for'tbe tastes of some of them, but it's best to have the error on the right side, as far as that goes. But they're wonderful, these men. Never a word of complaint—they stand the pain and all the rest of it, and do little things for each other. ~"

We walked along the ward, and passed a bed on which sat an aiifp.sthetiser at the head, while . at the foot a -surgeon clipped away gangrenedf flesh from the stump of an amputated limb. It was.a commonplace, here. Chubby Cupids looked out from among gilt mouldings on to the narrow bods and hospital lockers. "It's a rum mixture," saidl the doctor, looking up at the wall. "They talk of eye cases," I suggested. \ "Lots of them," he answered, '/some with one eve gone, some with both destroyed. It comes from shots or shell splinters,'passing across the front of their heads, without touching the brain. In some.ways those cases are, the most pitiful of all—if you look round;, you'll see plenty of bandaged heads..'. There's a man in London , ; ?they tell me,.'.stone blind who spends every ._ minute of his spare, time'"in visiting the men in the hospitals who have been blinded in the waV; and trying to cheer them.up by telling.them the compensations lie has found. When, you reckon up that he's not long been blind himself—r-" I had already, . counted about twenty men, on whom, the bandages covered either one or both the eyes. how the unnumbered blessing suddenly flashes upon you and countb for everything—l saw, with eyes that see, the work of that blind man in London,, whose own great loss is the' great gain, of so many. "Lots of tetanus,''' the doctor said. He mentioned one of the most famous of London'surgeons. "We've got him with foiir .assistants working away in a basement, and he's stopping tetanus in scores and scores of cases—.-§aving lives by the hundred. When the bacilli are.discovered, we iniect anti-toxin before, the disease dievelops, and there you are." He strolled on a few stews, with a glance at each, bed that 'he passed. The men looked 1 up at him rather anxiously, for it lav in his power to marlc them out for England or to

the convalescent camp. "I've got a new way of amputation, too," he anonunced, and went into distinctly unpleasant surgical details. "Saves two or three inches more of a limb than the other way." I suggested that the experience gained was valuable. "It's unique," he agreed. "More practical surgery in a week than one could get in ten' years in an ordinary practice. And ' all kinds—every class of case. Legs, intestinal, head cases—l'm most interested in the head cases, though." He gave more details, ending with an encomium on the courage and patience of tlie men, "It's a pmi-

"I was thinkin' perhaps he'd mark me out for England," he explained. "I'm nearly well enough to travel, now, and though they're mighty good to us here I'd rather be home. The doctor, there, he's a mighty clever - man, shure he is, but I wish he'd mark me out." He was reluctant to talk about his experiences in the trenches. "We were down on the Aisne, and it was hot work there," he admitted!—"very hot. Then they moved us up to Armentieres, and it was round; there that I got this. Ah, but they're beasts an' not men at all, the Germans. The things I've seen—old men and women shot. . ." I left him trying to pronounce "Ypres" correctly, and absolutely certain that he would be home with the "ould folks" within the month. He would have to' face life a onearmed man, but he was quite cheerful about it. - "Some haven't even one arm to go back with," he declared. At-the door by which one enters the ward I came on one of the neurasthenic cases, a big hussar who sat on the floor with his head propped

lege to work among such patients," lie declared. "One could never believe, without seeing, the way they stand things." He pointed out a bed in the far corner of the ward. "Not the man sitting up—the one next him, on the left. He came in with half his jaw shot away and all the muscles laid bare on the side of his neck, as well as a broken collarbone. There was a big lump at the back of the shoulder, and at first we thought it was hemorrhage, but the second day it had got so painful that I judged it best to operate, though there was danger in doing it. And it wasn't hemorrhage—it was tbe top of a shell—the., piece that tlie fuse is screwed into, a lump of iron about as big as a teacup. And now that man will get well and go back to England—he lost sixty ounces of blood over it after coming in ■■here, as well as what he lost before be got here. Oh, you'll find some marvellous recoveries among them." . . He mused for a minute, and then shook hands. "Talk all you like io the patients," he said, "but don't stop too

long talking to the sisters—they have all their work cut out and little time for talking." With that he went on his way, and a little later I saw him busied over one of his "head cases." Meanwhile I sat down beside a man in a suit of pyjamas, who, I ascertained, had been a corporal in an Irish regiment. He had one arm left, and I expressed sympathy with him. "Ah, shure, it might have boon worse," ho answered. "It might have been my head, and what thin?" The philosophy of this was unanswerable, so- I congratulated him on his pyjamas, where other men had to be oontent Avitli mere shirts. "I got 'em up by Armentieres," he explained. "An, ould Frenchman gave 'em to me, audi on the whole I'd rather have a shirt for day wear —but shure you can't get everything you want." He paused, expectantly, till the doctor had passed on.

As the doctor said, there is need for extreme care in dealing with such cases as that of the hussar, for there is a. danger that they may, if improperly handled at the outset, go back to civilian life as mental wrecks, with their nerves permanently shattered and their intellects clouded. In each case a period of complete rest and quiet is necessary, away from the sight and sound of things military. Surgical cases are simple by comparison with these mental wrecks, whose final recovery is a matter for the consideration, not of the base hospitals, but of the convalescent establishments in England, the places that come more directly and completely under the control of the. Red Ciws, where time and room are. not of so much account as at tlie base.

There aro, in the hospitals in France, probably more civilian doctors who have volunteered for the work than there arc R.A.M.C. surgeons, and the way in which these mow have gone out is not the least n'otoAvorthy feature of voluntary work. In many cases thoyyhave left good practices—and a medical man's practice is a thing that suffers more through neglect than through anything; "° substitute can hold a practice together for any length of time. Yot these men have gone out to the work, giving up good incomes for military pay, not as a matter of brief enthusiasm, but for the period of the Avar. Some among them are at the very top of their profession, specialists of the first rank —but they give their services for the benefit of the troops, in the spirit that animates all Red Cross workers. As to how they work, the lady superintendent of'one of the hospitals declared: "On the first day of a big rush the surgeons were operating from twelve noon until midnight, and I dbn't think any of us went to bed for the first thirty-six hours." And again, "The nurses have been admirable. It is not possible to say enough of what has been accomplished by them and by the surgeons and physicians. They have done splendid work."

The work is not yet half done, and the need for voluntary, effort is greater than ever. It only requires that this be known. It has beeij insinuated in some quarter® that, ivith the passing of first enthusiasms, though the workers stick to their tasks'in a manner beyond all the general public are apt to flose sight of the need for effort, and to slacken in their support of Redi Cross activities. But, consider!_ If,' in any measure, a nation fails in the maintenance of voluntary effort for the care of the sick and wounded in war; if sufficient support is not forthcoming, for as long as the need exists, to erasure adequate provision being made for this noble work-, then that nation will have failed in one of the greatest trusts ever reposed in it, failed in that tenderness !and sympathy which overcomes the wrath of war. ' Of the British nation that shall of a truth never be said. "The Way of tho Red Cross." Hodder and Stoughton. 2s 6d nett. (All profits from sale go to "Times" Fund for Sick and Wounded.)

between his hands, and his case sheet, on which the particulars of his disease were inscribed, laid across his knees. He looked up .at theVfhan in the bed by the door.- -^•|%^'&*v.:. "Is this the hospital?"-he: #J*d. "Yes," said the other.y, man, "you're in the hospital, all right.?'' "Eh? "said the hussar, as if he had not heard distinctly. "It is the hospital," the other man answered. ' 'Hospital ?" the hussar , queried. "Who, said - -anything; - about' Hospital?" With that his head fell forward again on his hands, and;he.sat, a picture of misery, on the floor. He was dirty and unshaven, fresh from the work- round Ypres, whence the men came deafened by the incessant roar of the exploding shells. Later, ho would bo given a bath and sent to bed 1 , though from a surgical point of view there was nothing wrong with. him. He looked utterly.exhausted and depressed, nothing more.