The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-07

1 London. October 21.-(Special )-The spread over the near east. The famous
 British nurse who went to the Crimea half century ago to minister to the sici, | and wounded finds score of counterparts ! in the conflagration which is spreading
 so rapidly in those regions.
 In Servia the work has been particular ly severe, and particularly heroic. The story of the work of the American and British doctors and nurses is well known The heroisn of their fight against typhus
 and other epidemics will ever be a glow ing page in the history of this war. Now a new work has been begun in Servia~medical salvation of new kind but most effective as the thousands of ailing ones who daily present themselves
 for treatment shows. It consists of what are called roadside dispensaries '-medi- cal establishments simply planted at con venient points at the side of Servia's high
 ways, The idea, which was originated by
 Mrs. St. Clair Stobart an English wom- ar of wondrous experience in war has
 proved most effective. Peasants trav- el miles to seek the assistance of the doc tors and nurses. Hundreds of lives have been saved.
 foHG lS tllo uduSnIeT Ol d llelceSIeTSUlTG baronet and before her marriage was one of Englands best tennis players, and a splendid golfer. She has fished in "ev- cry river in Europe," and besides being a sportswoman of considerable fame she is also an authoress and p-aywright of rec ognized ability.
 Mrs. Stobart knew war first when she took out to the Balkan war before the last complete hospital staff, composed pntiralV Df and field
 hospital at Kirk Killisse. Mrs. Stobart, who is not a nurse herself had two things in mind-one to minister to the suffering, the other to prove to the British war office and the British public that women have the strength, grit and intelligence to assume control of nursing in war. At the outbreak of the present war Mrs Stobart, at the invitation of the Belgian Red Cross, went to Brussels to establish a hospital Her experiences were enough, it would seem, to have robbed anyone of desire to see anything more of the rigors of war. Her plans for a hospital in Brussels were frustrated by the entry of the German army Mrs Sto- bart got there, but her staff, luckily for them, did not. Mrs. Stobart endeavored to go to Holland She was placed under arrest en route, accused of being spy
 stripped and searched repeatedly, and
 placed in a cell where she slept on straw She was threatened with being shot, too or getting at least three years in a Ger
 man fortress. After many days she was let go.
 Mrs. stobart returned to England. She found that Red Cross workers were need ed in Antwerp, and off she went to that beleaguered city with a staff of doctors and nurses She went through the brief German siege. Mrs. Stobart was in the midst of it all, with shells bursting all around her. The roof of one of her hos pitfalls was blown off. On motor busses laden with ammunition Mrs. Stobart and her staff fled from Antwerp in hail. storm of bullets and shells. They crossed l a bridge just before it was blown up, l and were safe.
 After returning to England. Mrs. Sto- | bart went to France. She was stationed 1 two or three months i'll a hospital at 1 Cherbourg This was too far from the firing line for Mrs .Stobart, so she again | returned to England and prepared to take ! a hospital and staff to Servia. This she did and her unit" has done wonderful work Now she is again in the path of advancing German hordes, and probably l in for still greater excitement.
 l The story of her roadside dispensaries | is best told by herself. Here it is; l Tt doesn't much matter what you | do as long as you do something. This motto is responsible for the lnaugura- l tion of the scheme of roadside tent 1 dispensaries for Servian peasants. We l the Stobart Women's Field Hospital
 unit came out in April to this country,
 prepared to do military field hospital work and we started with 130 Servian wounded soldiers. Owing, however. to | the continued Hull in the fighting, it | was obvious that this branch of work was not likely to absorb all our ener-
 gies. But one-third of the Servian doc tors had died of typhus and the re-
 mainder-about 300 all told-were oc- cupied either at the front or with ad-
 ministrative work or in military hos pitals in the towns and no medical aid was available for the peasants in the country districts. Was there nothing
 we could do in small way to help those brave peasants who are the back bone of the Servian army?
 "The idea immediately occurred te me to place a small tent on the road side at the edge of our field hospital | --improvise a notice board from two bits of wood from an old packing case --write in Servian a notice to the eff feet that if folks would bring their
 own bottles, medicine and medical ad- Il vice would be given gratis-and see what happened. And this is what has happened during the four months that
 have passed since that scrap of papel first appeared. Twelve thousand peas
 ants, men, women and children, walk ing or driven in OK wagons, 50, SC
 and 70 miles, suffering from every con
 ceivable and unconceivab1e complaint
 have been treated at this one dispen.
 sary alone. The idea caught on aston
 ishingly, and it was evident that
 amongst these patient suffering peas
 ants who had of necessity been medi.
 cally neglected during three years oi |, continuous warfare the need of me.
 dical aid would be urgent also in other
 districts. I. therefore, sent a cable
 to the Servian relief fund, under who's
 aegis our unit had come to Servia, ask
 ing for equipment and personnel fol
 fix additional dispensaries. The com.
 mittee rose to the occasion, with the
 result that at this moment our centra
 hospital at Kragujevatz is surrounded
 at an average radius of 30 miles by
 circle of roadside tent dispensaries each controlling further and still