The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-20

! open-air treatment in private cases and when war broke out he determined to give it trial The place was built with l incredible speed, @ hospital with more ! than 1200 beds being made ready for oe- cupancy in eight weeks, and this included the presence of full staff and complete equipment. Each "block" of the hospital
 is divided into two wings, east and west.
 Each has 60 beds. The south wall of each block is left open except for curtains, which are lowered when the weather is 1 bad, but most of the time the wounded soldiers Live virtually in the open air, with roof overhead, and well protected 1 from drafts and wind. The wounded men are distributed about according to the nature of their injuries. The whole hos pital is on one level and all blocks are connected by covered passages with each other and with the administrative build- ings and the huge kitchens. More than 1900 patients have been cared for at one time.
 The hospital was built, strategicaliV
 speaking, for use in the event of an in vasion, but although there has been no invasion, 1t has ever been a busy place
 After each big engagement in Flanders the wounded come pouring in, with reg ularity that is marvel of organization
 Men have been taken into this hospital
 within 2G hours of the time they were I~tSHN'ee4AJ NOdiAAlSQ at the IfOnC. w nen a man is wounded he is picked up and
 taken to a base hospital If his injuries permit he is placed on a hospital train ana taken to the coast. There he is l transferred from train to motor car and taken to the Cambridge hospital
 1 UP to December 1 a total of IS ,9O4 off cers and men had been treated. Of these
 there have been 147 deaths, a percentage or .73, which the doctors consider mar Velous. The efficacy of the open air treat inent IS perhaps best shown in the treat ment or pneumonia. There have been .S7 cases in this hospital with only five
 aeaths which is percentage of 5.7. lower than any other hospital in England can show. S'''i
 After they are once accustomed +o
 the open air the men do not appear to mlnd It. l saw some Australians there
 IL Was cold, snowy day, and for many or these wounded Anzacs it was their
 frst glimpse of snow Every solitary one or them had taken to his bed, with p4ankets piled high and with hot water oottles inside, but they were still cheer Iul. The nurses suffer some from the cold or the nights, but they avoid inc heaoacheS of stuffy sick rooms and at each end of every ward there is a heat ca room where they may go when
 eileir uuties do not require their pres ence in the open ward.
 One of the unique things about inc hospital is the ward devoted to hot water treatment. Here men with pois- oned wounds live in water heated to 9 temperature of 100 degrees. Bath tubs nave been set up and beds built into them The tub Is filled with the hot
 water, which is always changing and the men are put into these beds their
 wounds open and unbandaged, There they stay for days at a time, often weeks, not leaving even to eat or sleep. Ihe hot water cleanses the wounds and aleylates the pain. It is rather heroic treatment and it isn't taken except when other methods fail, but 1t is oft Fen most efficacious
 The hospital was erected at very low
 cost In London the cost per bed in a hospital runs to between $500 and $2O00. In Cambridge the cost Is less
 than $S0.
 Dr. A. E, Shipley, master of Christ's college, has taken a leading part in the organization of the hospital In book let he has written concerning the place he says
 Tt is difficult for people accustomed ! to closed and curtained rooms to real Isize the part that air plays in the
 maintenance of health throughout their | lives; hence the value of pure, fresh
 air in helping the body to cure wounds
 and to throw off disease remains often tnrecognized. We are apt to forget
 that the air contains POS per cent of the most important of the chemical l elements required for the proper nu- triton and cleansing of the tissues of the body viz: oxygen. The rest is near ] ly all nitrogen, which is practically inert When, soon after the beginning | of the war, it became clear that, ow- | ing to the improvement in the meth- cd of transport of the wounded and injured, incapacitated men could and did come direct from the front to the military hospitals in this country, 1t seemed that the time had arrived to put into practice on a large scale the open air treatment which had been for so
 many wears severly tested at the Ad- denbrooke's hospital at Cambridge and at many hospitals in other centers.
 The most striking result obtained when a patient lives in the open air is the main tenance or restoration of healthy con- dition of the body, feeling of pleasure
 at being alive, a certain elevation of spirit and a consequent kindly good
 will toward others. This improvement in health and morale certainly happens
 when a patient is transferred from a closed ward to an open air ward. These happy symptoms are obvious even to an
 untrained observer but underlying them, and indeed intimately associated with them, is an increased activity in the tis- sues of the body, raising of the pa- eicAI POWSf LO IufOW OH GlSeGSe, a ten- dency to counteract the sepsis so often associated with wounds and d speeding up of the rate of return to ordinary health almost beyond belief Air the destroyer or transformer of all the waste products of vital activity, exercises similar influence on the products of dis ease and as these products prolong ill., ness and the recovery from wounds, it is of the greatest importance that pure air should be abundantly supplied. Compara- lively few have yet realized that fresh air can be given to invalids and to our
 wounded heroes all the year round with out mourning any undue exposure to colo, especially in the temperate climate Of the British Isles. Our results, since the
 mobilization of the First Ea Gen eral hospital show that cases of pneu- monia and of bronchitis do remarkabIv well in our wards open to all the winds of heaven; that the period of recovery. so often tediously long, is greatly cur | tailed. and that open flesh wounds soon become healthy. the patient gaining vigor and strength the while his lesions are healing.
 Tn our open air wards there Is fresh air in abundance, but no cold cross and draughty currents There is in them no closeness of atmosphere and no smell either from wounds or dressing and ex- cept in the operating theatre no odor of l iodoform or anaesthetics The patients 1 also enjoy a freedom impossible to grant l In closed ward Above all. visitors.
 however numerous, cannot foul or pollute
 the atmosphere; while patients, nurses anr doctors alike remain free from lassi- l sude and headache the well lpoxyr ra