538 



MILITARY SUEGERY AND MEDICINE. 



by a first lieutenant, and the force attached to a 

 corps by a captain who is responsible to the 

 medical director of the army. The ambulances 

 to be provided with stretcher-hooks and seats, 

 and with water, cordials, bandages, etc. The 

 wounded are brought off by these arrangements 

 promptly and with comparatively little suffering. 

 As a matter of fact, however, there have been 

 usually but two ambulances to a regiment, and 

 sometimes but one. 



The different means of transportation adopted 

 deserve notice. In most of the armies the U. 

 S. army hand-litter or stretcher is now in use 

 for carrying men off from the field, but some 

 of the smaller outlying bodies of troops, and 

 occasionally detachments of cavalry, are not 

 provided with them. For these, as well as for 

 the larger bodies of troops early in the war, the 

 hand-litter made with guns and blankets, has 

 been extemporized ; for this purpose the edges 

 of the blanket are rolled over the guns, and tied 

 firmly with twine, and two stout sticks are also 

 tied transversely across at the head and foot 

 serving as handles for the bearers. This being 

 laid on the ground, the wounded man is placed 

 gently upon it with his knapsack under his 

 head, and the bearers, standing between the 

 guns, carry him with comparative comfort. 

 The Indian litter is made by taking two stout 

 saplings, and attaching to them three cross- 

 pieces about two and a half or three feet apart 

 by cords and notches ; the sick or wounded 

 man being placed on his blanket, this frame- 

 work is placed over him and the blanket knot- 

 ted to it. By three bent twigs and an addi- 

 tional blanket a kind of wagon top can be made 

 to this in case of storm. Dr. James R. "Wood 

 hr>.s invented an admirable hand-litter of can- 

 vas, with the sides bound with very strong 

 rope with loops at suitable distances and the 

 cross-pieces of steel. This can be rolled up in 

 small compass for transportation, and needs 

 only a couple of poles, easily obtainable for 

 use at any time. Panniers to be fitted on 

 the backs of mules or horses (the former are 

 preferable) are of service in mountainous dis- 

 tricts where wheel carriages are inadmissible. 

 The French use them to some extent in their 

 ambulance corps. One of the panniers receives 

 a man sitting, the other, one in a recumbent or 

 partially recumbent position. It is necessary 

 that the animals, whether horses or mules, should 

 have been trained specially for this service. A 

 horse or mule litter for transporting a wounded 

 man in a recumbent position, by means of two 

 horses, one before, the other behind the litter, 

 was ordered by the U. S. Army Medical Board 

 in 1860, but has not been very generally intro- 

 duced. It is convenient for a mountainous 

 country, but requires too many horses and men 

 for a single soldier. The two-wheeled ambu- 

 lance, known as Cherry's Cart, which may be 

 used either as an ambulance or transport, found 

 at first considerable favor in the army, though 

 Dr. (now Medical Inspector, U. S. A.) Coolidge's 

 two- wheeled ambulance soon superseded it, and 



proved an admirable conveyance for woucded 

 men on smooth and good roads, though too 

 light for the rough and horrible routes over 

 which most of our campaigning has been con- 

 ducted. Surgeon General Hammond ordered, 

 in 1863, four-wheeled ambulances to be drawn 

 by two horses, which proved preferable to any . 

 others in the service. They were intended to 

 convey ten or twelve persons sitting, or two 

 sitting and two or three lying down. A still 

 better four-wheeled ambulance, also drawn by 

 two horses, has, within a few months past, beec 

 perfected by Dr. B. Howard, late a surgeon in the 

 U. S. Army, and has been adopted in the ser- 

 vice, and received the approval of the Sanitary 

 Commission (fig. 3). It is beyond question the 

 most admirably contrived conveyance for sick 

 or wounded men over roads of any description 

 which has ever been constructed, and seems to 

 leave no room for further improvement. It 

 admits of the transportation of six persons sit- 

 ting, or two recumbent, or one recumbent and 

 three sitting, and gives to the sitter all the ad- 

 vantages of a corner seat with cushion, for sup- 

 port, while the josting and shaking of an ordi- 

 nary ambulance is entirely prevented by the use 

 of semi-elliptic springs with counterpoise springs 

 inside, and rubber buffers to receive any sudden 

 shock (figs. 4, 5, 6). The badly wounded aro 

 brought on the litters of the ambulance, which 

 are well cushioned and slid into place in the 

 ambulance on steel rollers, and steadied in their 

 position by loops and guys. A tank of fresh 

 water is placed underneath the seats and beds, 

 and the water can be drawn from the rear end 

 of the ambulances (figs. 7, 8). There are also 

 contrivances for the suspension of fractures of 

 the lower extremities without motion, and for 

 suspending, if necessary, additional stretchers 

 in the ambulance. There are also hooks on 

 the sides of the ambulance for carrying folded 

 stretchers, and compartments for the necessary 

 simple cordials, lint, bandages, &c. It is in 

 short a complete flying hospital (fig. 9). 



It has sometimes been necessary to transport 

 the sick and wounded to hospitals remote from 

 the battle-fields, either for the sake of a more 

 healthful climate, or to afford them better hos- 

 pital accommodation and greater facilities for 

 recovery. In the earlier years of the war, this 

 was done, when it was possible, on steamboats 

 or steamships chartered as transports. They 

 were often fearfully crowded and exposed to 

 great suffering in their voyages, and \vhere, as 

 was the case after the battles of the Peninsula 

 and Antietam in 1862, the voyage was made 

 by sea, the rolling of the vessels in the gales 

 they often encountered, increased the agony 

 and caused the death of many of the helpless 

 sufferers. Subsequently, where transportation 

 by railroad was necessary, they were carried in 

 passenger cars, or oftener in box or freight cars, 

 with straw laid upon the floors. In this way 

 many thousands were brought from Chatta- 

 nooga to Nashville and Louisville, in the au- 

 tumn of 1863, and a large number in the spring 



