MILITARY HYGIENE 987 



A Field Hospital takes the earliest opportunity of sending 

 back all horses useless to retain for treatment in the area 

 of active operations, and these cases are sent to the 

 Stationary Hospitals. 



A Stationary Hospital is a much more highly organized 

 institution than a Field Hospital. It has properly laid out 

 lines, even, perhaps, temporary shelter for the sick, mangers, 

 water troughs, baths for skin cases, baths for disinfecting 

 purposes, an exercising track, tents for the men and equip- 

 ment, and accommodation for stores. The sanitation of a 

 standing camp, especially that used for hospitals, must 

 receive urgent attention. One, two, or more changes of 

 lines are imperative, depending on the weather, in order to 

 prevent the ground getting seriously fouled. Dung must 

 be collected and removed, standings scraped, latrines dug, 

 and storm drainage provided for. The collection of a large 

 number of sick in one place calls for the most urgent 

 sanitary control. 



A graveyard is one of the earliest matters to arrange for. 

 It is no use discussing cremation unless the fuel exists. 

 The death-rate may be one hundred a week, more or less, 

 depending on circumstances. Long trenches should be 

 dug by local labour, the animals disembowelled, stifles and 

 elbows cut through so as to cause the limbs to drop, and 

 the animals placed on their backs side by side, not a foot 

 of space being wasted. Trench digging is laborious work, 

 and may be unable to compete with the death-rate, let 

 alone with the destructions, which may number a hundred 

 or two at a time. 



Under these circumstances a place must be selected as 

 far from camp as possible, on elevated but flat ground, 

 away from watercourses or collecting areas, and here the 

 dead are laid on the surface after being disembowelled. 

 Thev are placed side by side, and a good deep trench, six 

 feet wide and not less than four feet deep, dug all round 

 the place in the form of a circle or square, with a bridge of 

 earth left affording access to this Golgotha. 



The object of the trench is to collect the water deposited 



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