THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



77 



Iconic wars, but they were very crude 

 affairs, which followed after the armies 

 and tried to do something for those who 

 had been injured. But it was Yankee 

 ingenuity that brought the ambulance to 

 its present perfection during our late war. 

 Now you must remember that that is 

 only about thirty years ago, and it was 

 not until 1870 that Bellevue Hospital 

 had an ambulance at all. But to go back 

 to the days when there were no am- 

 bulances, no hospital corps ; when noth- 

 ing was done on the battle-field for those 

 who received injuries and wounds. Just 

 think of the horrible torture and suffer- 

 ing that must have been endured by the 

 poor soldiers left on the battle-field when 

 the army moved on ; one poor individual 

 injured trying to aid and sustain another, 

 who had perhaps received almost the 

 same injury and left there on the battle- 

 field to die. But this ambulance as you 

 see it here is the perfection of ambu- 

 lances. Just think how many times you 

 see them in this city every day, and 

 hardly stop to think of their history and 

 what they do. It is so easy to get an 

 ambulance. About all you have to do is 

 to "push a button" and the ambulance 

 "does the rest." The ambulances in 

 this city respond yearly to about 7,000 

 calls, and you can get one by going to 

 any police station. I am not sure about 

 the fire alarms, but you can at the police 

 station. You see one here. The ambu- 

 lance surgeon is supposed to put any 

 fracture or injury of any kind into fair 

 condition before he takes the patient to 

 the hospital, where the final dressings 

 are put on. 



Now we are in another part of that 

 location down there in East 26th street, 

 and I am showing you now a picture of 

 the interior of the Morgue — that is, the 

 old Morgue — the interior. You see those 

 rough pine boxes piled up here one upon 

 the other. Inside each of those is the 



body of some person who has died and 

 been left without any friends. You 

 would hardly think so, but there are 

 about 7,000 to 10,000 people die in this 

 city every year with no one to claim 

 them — from 7,000 to 10,000. Superin- 

 tendent Blake, of the Outdoor Poor De- 

 partment, states that in his opinion there 

 are 100,000 people in this city all the 

 time, walking up and down these streets 

 with no place to go when in health — no 

 home, no friends — simply that tramp, 

 tramp, tramp of the tramp going through 

 this city all the time. About 10,000 of 

 them die every year with no one to claim 

 them. Most of you are aware of the fact 

 that the bodies of these people who die 

 in these institutions and in various places 

 are used for dissecting purposes in the 

 colleges. They keep them in the Morgue 

 a certain number of hours or days, and 

 then if no one claims them they are either 

 photographed or some identification 

 made, their clothing saved, and then 

 they are sent to the different colleges for 

 dissecting purposes. In the summer 

 time, when the colleges are closed, the 

 bodies are sent to the colleges just the 

 same. At most of these colleges they 

 have enormous great vats with salt water 

 in them, and they throw the bodies in 

 and keep them until the fall time comes 

 again. (Laughter.) 



Now I am going to show you a picture 

 of another wagon that you see once in a 

 while in the streets. It is known as the 

 "Black Maria," only it happens to be a 

 "White Maria" in America. They have 

 painted them white here, but in some of 

 the old countries, England for instance, 

 they have been painted black and re- 

 ceived the name of the " Black Maria." 

 Now, that wagon goes around to the 

 police courts and to the station houses 

 and picks up the criminals and those 

 that have been sentenced, and they carry 

 them down to the foot of East 26th 



