MILITARY MEDICINE CHAMBERLAIN. 241 



Light field hospitals, able to accompany troops with supplies, 

 surgeons, apothecaries and assistants, came into being about 1850, 

 but these had no organization of litter bearers to bring wounded to 

 them and depended on requisitioned country carts for transport of 

 disabled. The Crimean War demonstrated the inefficiency of the 

 British medical department and emphasized the necessity for some 

 mobile transport organization. As a result litter-bearer sections 

 were organized in several armies. Prior to this the fate of the 

 wounded had been pitiable, though the short range of weapons and 

 close order of battle formation had been factors which greatly facili- 

 tated collection and succor of the injured. 



Improvements in firearms and munitions, especially rifling and 

 the use of fixed ammunition with conoidal bullets and percussion 

 caps, had caused, at the time of our Civil War, a great increase in 

 the range and rapidity of fire. Tactics began to adjust themselves 

 accordingly. Danger zones increased in depth and the rapidity 

 and precision of the new arms brought about thinning and lengthen- 

 ing of the lines. As a result the wounded were scattered over a much 

 larger area than before. Our sanitary service at that time consisted 

 of several surgeons and a small hospital for each regiment, a fairly 

 mobile field hospital under canvas for each division, a division 

 surgeon to administer the foregoing, and at the bases a great number 

 of vast fixed hospitals. This system was cumbersome and imprac- 

 ticable in that it retained with the regiments seriously disabled men 

 and bulky supplies, neither of which had a place there. It was 

 therefore destructive to tactical efficiency by interfering with the 

 mobility of fighting units. It was undesirable from a humanitarian 

 standpoint because it held sick and wounded at the front where their 

 care and comfort could not be properly considered. The sanitary 

 equipment of the regiments was usually far back with the trains and 

 not available when most needed. The personnel of one regiment 

 might be overwhelmed with wounded while that of another, not en- 

 gaged, was entirely unoccupied. There were no reserve sanitary 

 organizations for bridging the gap, often very great, which inter- 

 vened between the firing line and the division hospital, and between 

 the latter and the advance base, or for reinforcing the sanitary 

 services attached to commands which were overwhelmed by a high 

 proportion of casualties. As a result great delays in succoring the 

 wounded and unimaginable suffering occurred in the early part of 

 the Civil War. That these undesirable conditions were not confined 

 to our own Army is shown by the words of an experienced French 

 military surgeon, Le Gouest, who wrote about this time as follows : 



Military surgeons who have been present in various engagements all know 

 that when the wounded full in ranks there are none to carry them off except 

 their own comrades * * * the soldier quits the rank often never to return 



