The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-05-16

around the old ones, and buildings
still newer-enough, l was afterward
told, for 1000 more beds-were in pro-
cess of construction just beyond the
farthest wall.
We passed a house labeled BAG
THEOLOGICAL Laboratory; another the
sign on which proclaimed it the "Fu-
migation Plant: We passed car barns
and rest-rooms. There was just a
glimpse of the little autopsy house,
and beyond it a tiny field with heaps
of freshly turned earth and head
stones. There was one hut sent down
here by the American Red Cross and
devoted, as | was 10 learn, entirely
to the storage of the hospitals linens:
there We're the surgical wards, the
medical, ~venereal, casual and isolation
wards, each housed under its W
roof, and, finally, here we were drawn
up at the receiving ward. a group Of
orderlies ready to unload our ambu-
lance.
| paused to make to a waiting young
inferno my report of our journey.
Then | followed Bill to the room
where they had carried him.
He was in a frightful condition. For
a week he had lived with death; rats
had been his most frequent COM
panions. He was mated to mud and
familiar with filth. Caked with blood
and clay, crawling with vermin, he was
taken to a rude bunk. Nurses in
s~peckless white removed his clothes.
| He was shaved; he was given the lux
ury OF a warm bath; he "a wheeled
into another room for the diagnosis.
What becomes OF his clothes?" |
asked the inferno. "Do you burn
them"
"Not much" he told me. This army
can't afford to waste uniforms. The
British run hot irons over the seams
that's where the bugs live-but We use
sulphur. We've got a huge fumigat-
ing plant: you must have passed 1t
on your way in-we can put three mat
~tresses into it at a time-three mat
tresses and six mems weeks wash
ing. Have to-there's no sun here in
winter. and we must do all our drying
by artificial heat. We even dry our
wood by piling it around the outside
of the boiler. It'd work all right II
we only had good coal. but Goals half
dust and stones these days, and we
have to draw our fires every two
hours"
He had his pride and his grievances.
The hospital had existed through its
first couple Of months without ambu
lances; it possessed no trucks of its
own even now, and not a single Linn
ousine-not so much as a %runabOut;
the washing had all to be done by a
pair of those miraculous French laun-
dries-on-wheels, into which you throw
dirty clothes that come out clean
miraculous, that is, but rather toe
greatly taxed in present circum'
stances; the place had been taken
over from our Gallo allies, only half
developed, and yet-well, look at it:
There was a capacity of 1856 when,
when the mess-rooms were turned in
to wards, as during last weeks rush,
could be stretched to 800; at this mo-
ment 6S1 patients were being cared
for without the slightest strain upon
resources; the institution was as first
rate as any in America.
"The number Of patients is chang
ing all the time" said the inferno.
1--WE known it TO jump from 400 to
700 in two days without warning. And
YOU can't count on orders. One night,
a week ago, we got word to get ready
for 100, and at 2 a. m. there were am
balances with POI at the door"
While he was talking we were fol
lowing Bill.
We went through a where, out
Of powdered plaster Of paris, no wa
ter and crinoline such as our grand
mothers wore, a group of figures at a
long table We're manufacturing casts
for injured legs and arms-igures
shaped in shapeless gowns, hooded
figures with rubber gloves and masks
to shut away their breaths from the
work of their hands; | thought them
men until the inferno old me they
were women nurses. We passed these
and came into the operating room, in
to a room the roof Of which was or
glass. the air of which was anesthetic
and the occupants of which were five
surgeons and thrice as many orderlles
and a~nesthetizers at their bloody jobs
about five stentorously breathing pa
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