SCENES IN THE HOSPITALS AT VERSAILLES.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3146, 13 March 1871, Page 3

SCENES IN THE HOSPITALS AT VERSAILLES.

[By the Times Special Correspondent.]

I went round through the Palace hospital wards, beginning with those in charge of the Dutch ambulance, which is admirably conducted by Dr. Van der Velde, the Palestine traveller. As might be expected, these wards were exceedingly clean and neat. " Wards," indeed ! The first I entered was the 11 Salle des Guerriers Celebres" — the ancient ante- chamber to the apartment of Madame de Pompadour — in which wore the usual hospital scenes — a Sister of Charity with a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other, feeding a soldier too weak to rise ; a surgeon dressing a dreadful wound: " I'm trying to savethejoint, but I fear— still it's a neat case." The poor wretch looked at the shattered bone as if he more than shared the doubt. Hospital orderlies moving about the rows of pale faces with anxious eyes, and above them all these brilliant warriors, in theatrical attitudes and glaring eyeballs, following you all over the place. It was an excellent idea of the Crown Prince. He suggested the changing of patients able to be moved from one room to another, so that the monotony of " Hoche for ever," " Joubert as before," and all the rest of them day after day, might not afflict the nerves of the sufferers and retard their cure. But, of course, it could not be carried out. On each door is a notice of the Republique Francaise, signed Jules Simon, relating to the internal arrangements of the hospital, and precautions against I wish Prussian surgeons used choloform ■ — that ii, if it be desirable in a medical point of view. But it is not in favor with them, nor is it with the French. I see in the Paris papers specific directions. for the treatment of wounds, in which chloroform is objected to as well as the use of " perchlurure of iron " While I was in one of the Salles des Marechaua a surgeon was probing a gunshot wound in the thigh of a man, who uttered such harrowing yells that the Sister of Charity — there is one in each room — turned and fled, a wounded man.near burst into tears, and all in the ward were agitated except the surgeon and his assistants, one of whom tried to stop the outcry by putting one hand on the top of the " patients" head, and squeezing his mouth and chin with the other, till the doctor lost his patience and roared at the wretched sufferer to be quiet, applying a strong term at the same time. Tbe yell died into a whimpering moan still more dreadful, and I retired. The doctor is a very clever man, I am told, and has his hospital in capital order. And apropos of him, let me notice what seems an illiberality on the part of the Prussians, as well as a folly. Jews may become regimental and staff surgeons, but the post of OberStabsarzt, which may be considered equivalent to our Deputy-Inspector-General of Hospitals, is closed against them. So if they are fit for it the State is deprived of the services of able men in places where they are most needed. I promised I would not dwell on hospital scenes, and I shall refrain from the description of the linked misery which extends along three sides, as you remember, of the centre in the rez-de-chaussee— l4 rooms, with their arrays of painted warriors. But there are " cases enough, some very curious." A peculiarity about curious cases, I observe, is, that the surgeon generally, if not invariably, says, "He can't live l6ng." And no wonder — " times was when brains were out that men would die." Well if it were so. One man was alive with a ball lodged in his brain ; he had even beon conscious. Another had the side of his skull clean carried off by- a bit of shell; a third in a ward all by himself was— -but no! It was too horrible. The man was in mania, and Mr Furley (who was with me) and I hurried into the

next ward, whence an orderly was sent to keep watch and ward over the f 'case." The simpering swagger and feathery flaunting of some of these marshals in their "salles" would be enough to make a man who was merely nervous quite delirious. I would not spend a night alone with " Catinat " or " Vitry " for a small fortune in my strongest days. Here you pass by the portraits of 1 hundreds of men who were famous in their day, and some whose names will live in story for ever, for they were great in the work of war; and war, let us say what we like, is still the ultima ratio, not only of kings but of peoples and republics, as it was the primo ratio of luckless, hapless France. The gallery of Louis XIII. , of the Admirals of France, and so on all round, are filled with wounded men to the officers' rooms. My first glance was at the bed on the left as you enter. I had seen a gallant Captain of Artillery lying there the last time I visited it, which was in company with Count von Gortz, of Schlitz, and had witnessed his reception of a little deputation from the men of his battery, who had come in from Plessis-Picquet to see how their officer was getting on. The bed was empty. I was quite relieved to hear from a Bavarian officer sitting up, with one leg left, that the artilleryman, who had only lost the greater part of one of his thighs, had been sent away to complete bis cure at home. The suites upstairs in the palace, or chateau , as it is more generally styled, are occupied in the same way as those below. There is at least silence in the rooms, broken only by the whispers of Sisters of Charity, the voices of chaplains by the bedside?, and the rustling of newspapers, which are eagerly read by the wounded ; but the rooms are draughty and cold, and as winter increases in harshness, there will be difficulties in ■ventilating the wards.