The evening leader., 1918-10-29
HOSPITAL MOVES
LIKE: BIG CIRCUS
Red Cross Adopts Methods of the
0ld-Time Travelling
Show.
HUGE tents HOUSE WOUNDED
Garry Full Equipment of Modern Hos.
pital-Strike Tents at Hours No
tice and Move Forward With
Precision of Circus.

Paris.-The methods of the old-time
American circus that enabled hun
tdreds of thousands of young and old
TO enjoy themselves have been con.
-4Scripted and put to war service on the
western front. But instead of being
glsed for amusement, the circuses are
aiding in the saving of human life.
The American Red Cross bought the
huge tents belonging to Ringing
Brothers and shipped them to France,
where they are now with the Ameri-
scan army. They no longer shelter
menagerie, acrobats and clowns, but
house hundreds of cots, wounded SOL
.ediers and Red Cross nurses.
All that reminds one of the circus
days of old are the methods and Or
SganiZatiOn Of the people connected
with this tent city. For they, like the
tcircus people at home, are here today
:and gone tomorrow. And every vestige
s0f their equipment is gone with them.
On an hours notice they strike their
hents, and within twenty-four hours
they are putting them up again-prob
ably twenty miles away. The person
: s1el are all army men, but theirs is
nomad'S life. They have no base, no
definite location. They simply follow
che fighting. They may cover the en-
sire American front within three
months.
- %carry Complete Equipment.
Their equipment and methods are
interesting. They carry every sort of
sanitary, surgical and electrical phara-
phernalia to be found in the most mod
ern of hospitals. They have X-ray
outfits, sterilizing outfits, radiators
with steam heat several operating ta-
0les with full equipment, electric light
plant and accommodations for the
care of more. than two hundred and
ffty wOunded-and all with a person
nel of less than one hundred men and
women.
But where they have the advantage
over the modern circuses is that they
supply their own transportation. Three
huge motortrucks are the keystone of
the outfit. One is used as steriizing
nachine and electric light plant An
other carries an emergency light plant
and central system for supplying steam
heat in the operating tents. The third
serves as a laundry and surgical in
sstruments carriage.
The tents, cots, bedclothing and 9th
er equipment are slowed in three or
-four trucks which are requisitioned
from the transportation department of
the army.
Handled Like Circus.
Like a regular circus, this mobile
hospital organization back of the lines
in France operates when the order
comes to move. The patients are evac-
uated first by ambulance. Then the
tents are struck and packed. Each
member of the hospital staff has spe-
Gifted duty to perform.
The personnel. nurses, army sur
geons and orderlies are the last to
leave the ground. riding in ambulances
and trucks. When they mount to
their places the grounds are cleared Of
everything, just Ike the abandoned
circus grounds in America.
The commanding officer, with his
staff, jumps into touring car and
;lnoves to the head of the column which
has formed in road near by. The or
der is given to move and the hospital
is gone-where no one knows except
tthe &c. O." who leads the procession.