The Alaska daily empire., 1917-08-27
GRAPHIC STORY OF NEW ANGLE
 TO EUROPEAN WAR; --SURCERY AT
 FRONT EXPLAINED BY A DOCTOR

mental bearers to the aid post,
 where he is more carefully dressed I by the regimental medical officer. There he is handed over to the field ambulance bearers, and borne by hand, by wheeled stretcher, or by trolley from one relay post to an other, until finally at a distance of one or two miles, he arrives at the advance dressing station. There the dressings are examined, and, if nee essary, renewed. Trains of trolleys drawn by gasoline engines are in waiting to bear the loads further up to the rear where they may be ac- cessible to the motor ambulance convoy, which takes them to the main dressing station. Here the pa. tients are redressed and so sent on to Railhead, clean, warm and fed.
 'Of the wounded in detail one sees little. One sees them in a mass Our business is to send them on their way, and twelve surgeons in a dressing station working night and day will clear the casualties as fast as they are brought in. The walk ing cases went direct from the field to collecting points and were sent down in busses forty at load. The lying cases neither move, nor speak, not utter a sound. It is only when we go to the base or come to Eng land that we see the wreck of war and the pity of it all.
 Medical arrangements must be de- vised anew for each action They vary with the plan of battle, and must be modified as the battle pro- ceeds. On the day in question an ample supply of blankets was as sembled; but in the night a bitter wind arose, with wet driving snow Within an hour 600 additional blank cts were at the front, assembled and transported-it does not matter how.
 Wounded Coming In
 Zero hour was at the dawn of bleak morning By 6 o'clock the wounded were coming in. By the prisoners were marching down by companies; by 8 the supply trains were moving up, and by o'clock the whole world was alive with men and horses, and motors over roads that were spewing up their stony entrails. When the action was over the battle area was like a heavy cross sea which had been partially transformed into land. Further ad- vance was impossible by reason of the clements, earth and water.
 Sixteen battalions were engaged on this 1.000-yard front, sixteen men to a yard. Each one had it's piece to do, and when it was done another battalion passed through and took up the advance. All winter the per formance had been rehearsed be- hind the lines, on a terrain marked off with tapes to initiate the battle area as discovered by aerial photo graphs. To each battalion was allot- ted a certain number of minutes for it's task. All was over by two o'clock and before darkness fell the field was clear. The evacuation from the front was so rapid that cases began to accumulate at the advance dressing station, and there they lay, piteous spectacle, but their pres ence was the finest tribute ever paid to the Medical Service. A General passed by. and when he saw the wounded lying in ranks on each side of the road, covered with snow, he thought the Medical Service had broken down, until it was explained Ito him that all casualties were dressed and fed, eased with morphia, and covered with blankets. instead of lying where they fell. Additional convoy was procured, and by mid night all were in their beds. That days work was over.
 arI nf preparedness for war, but the Medi- cal Service leaped up full armed when the first call sounded. For long years the Royal Army Medical Corps had worked upon the problem and found the plan. This plan had been adopted in Canada, and was we'll understood. The best of the profession volunteered, and many of them had some previous training in military affairs. In my own small unit we had in command surgeon of the first rank; second an officer who was at once surgeon and sol dier; third a dermatologist who had already had a thorough training. In deed, I have heard it said that the professional qualification of the men at the front is too high. A man who can succeed in medicine and surgery can succeed at anything, and that accounts for the excellence of the service at the front.
 Strictly Military
 "It must be hard for you to under stand how strictly military is medi cal service at the front: that is, the service in the division as distinguish ed from the service on the lines and at the base. Between the two a gulf is fixed. and it is with the division we are especially concerned tonight. In a division there are about twenty regimental officers. and three field ambulances with nine medical off -cers each. or twenty-seven in all.