Arizona republican., 1916-02-13
THE WOUNDED
 IF THE WAR
Description By Chairman of Surgical Dressings Com mittee of a Visit to French Hospitals. The Gratitude to Americans of Doctors

The following are extracts from an account of Mrs. Mary Hatch Will lards recent visit to France: As h. ternational Chairman of the Surgical Dressings Committee, 1 sailed for France on December 4. 1915, to meet the committees of our distributing acquaint myself with the needs of the hospitals in France and to con slider the aGvisabi.ity of organizing distributing bureaus in other warning countries
 Mrs. Willard was cordially received in Bordeaux and through the cour- tesy of the commissioner of police (who in France takes precedence over the Mayor). was accorded the privilege of visiting the hospitals and military institutions.
 Tt is impossible to describe my feelings as late that afternoon l passed beneath the portals of What was formerly Home for Aged, walked across a large court yard. glancing at beautiful chapel of Spanish architecture, which, former ly wop(d have held me spellbound, under trees older than the chapel, through other portals and other court yards into a low, rambling building. A volunteer Red Cross nurse led me to a small room ad- joining ward. We have only a few wounded men with us now she said, as many of our patients have been sent to convalescent homes or to their families, and those remain ing are all able to be about In a low, small room, heated by stove and very dimly lighted l stood in the presence of the Soldiers of 1 France. They were seated about tables reading. or at benches making bead rings or chains and weaving 1 baskets. One had lost an arm at the battle of Champagne, another a ! leg. A bandaged head indicated where another had received a wound, and others were cOnvalescing from fatigue and cold. They were anxious to get well again and go back to the front, and there was a light in their eyes as they spoke, which only the love of country could evoke. In the supply room of this hospital I saw a box of our surgical dressings which. a few days before, had been shipped from New York, and I felt that every member of the Surgical Dressings Committee should rejoice that they had been able to assist in caring for the wounded men whom I had just seen. The gratitude of the phy- sicians and nurses seemed to me a sufficient recOmpense for the eXpen- allure of the money and energy which had been put into this work"
 Another hospital in Bordeaux is supported by the charitable enterprise of one woman, Mime. la Generale C. who assisted by volunteer nurses had been for sixteen months in daily at tendance at the hospital which was installed in a high building, former ly a convent and divided into innum cradle large and small wards con- taining six hundred beds, occupied it seemed to me by an endless num- Der of sick and wounded men. To Mime. C. these sick men were hei
 
 from ward to ward cheering and con- soling her boys Many of then were lads only nineteen or twenty who had given all of their youth and strength to their beloved France l almost forgot their wounds as talked with them. They might have been convalescent patients in any hospital ward so calmly did they speak of their experiences and ol their desire to get well and return to the front: but always there wa: that look in their eyes-an inde- scribable, unfathomable something expressive of love. courage and hope AS one passes through the ward: of any of the hospitals in France i is not so much the awful wounds, thu pain suffered. or the endurance O these heroes that moves you, as it i. the unconquerable courage and spiri expressed not only in their faces but in their vOices-sweet and low as they answer your questions Yes