The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-06-16
GREAT WAR HOSPITAL
(Cor. of Associated Press)


new "Krankenhaus" in Barmbeck, a
suburb of Hamburg. This great hos
pitar, which overs several acres of
ground, was completed early last fall
at a cost of many millions of marks,
and has a capacity of 1000 beds.
Nine hundred of them nov contain
soldiers.
The most interesting part of the
hospital is the orthopaedic institute,
where the soldiers are being mas
saged and bathed and exercised back
into usefulness, either ON the battle
field or in private lie. A heretofore
unheard of percentage does get back
the use of paralyzed limbs and DAM
aged functions.
When the bullet, shrapnel Or shell
wound that put the soldier out of
business has healed it leaves him dis
abled in almost as great a variety of
ways as there are wounds, and fire.
quently with greatly impaired ability
to walk or run, or to use his hands, ,
arms and fingers.
According to the nature of his dis
ability, therefore, he is first given a
series of baths-mud, sand, hot air,
hot water, acid, light and electricity.
He lies for hours in a bath tub of
rich, black, hot mud, or he sits in
queer looking receptacles, while hot
sand pours down onto him and makes
his nerves Jingle.
He is lowered on a chair by mean
of a pulley into water as hot as any
man can stand. and after a time, un-
der the soothing, softening influence,
he is able to move limbs that before
were immobile. He sits with an arm
in an acid bath or with electricity
coursing through his system until
gradually he becomes more supple.
Then he moves into a room filled
with fantastic instruments, each de-
signed to give play to some particu-
lar muscles. If it is a leg that has
gone out of commission he mounts a
machine not unlike a bicycle and pc
dals for hours until at last he has won
back the use of his limb.
To Aid Breathing.
If a bullet has lessened the SOL
dier's ability to breathe he is sus-
pended by straps under the arms and
slowly drawn upward by a sort of
hoist which facilitates his inhalations.
He learns how to crook his knee, twist
his wrist, raise his arm and turn his
head.
So prominent a part does the use
of the vacuum play that there is a
vacuum room" where the GONZALES
cents sit, n with a on a
part of his arm, pulling up the flesh
about a wound, others with the ma
chine on their backs, their legs, on
almost every part of their anatomy.
There are countless patients with
arms or legs that have stiffened in
peculiar ways. One finds there, also
together in a big room, with odd
looking mechanical contrivances
strapped to arms or legs contri-
vances that can be frightened so as to
bend the arm a fraction of a cent?
meter more at a time until joints
have been coaxed back into the habit
of moving.
AS the patient lies on a bed with
a wounded knee that must be raised
a wooden continuance with screws,
under his leg, performs the duty
without the usual pain of such an
operation. Or a pulley arrangement
on the wall behind him lifts his arm
and turns it in an arc.
So frequent are the operations in
the Barmbeck hospital that the huge
operating room is served by a double
window connected with the antiseptic
chamber. instruments are passed
out one window, cleaned and passed
back through the other, where an
other patient may be ready.
A group of a dozen correspon-
dents, many of them men who had
frequently been at the front, had
been under fire and who had had an
opportunity to see some of the hor-
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