The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1920-03-06

room and wards were installed in the
buildings Of the French hospital, while
iBessoneau tents, set up in the garden.
housed the X-Ray plant and the com
bined admission and resuscitation
ward.
"AmbulanceS were unloading at the
gate when | visited this hospital late
on the afternoon of June H. | followed
| the Tour litter cases that were gently
llfted out and carried to the admission
ward, which was nearly full of wound.
Jed men awaiting operation. The new
arrivals were placed on litter racks.
which ran the length of the tent on
either side Of the centre aisle. Each
litter rack was draped with blankets
which fell to the ground. and so con-
served and centralized the heat from
stove placed beneath the liter. In
this way the Reimbursement of the
wounded man began from the moment
that they entered the hospital, and the
necessary tOrmalitieS in recording and
taking the history of new arrival
were not allowed to interfere with his
being thoroughly warmed first. This
| tent was presided over by an admit
| ting officer with a staff of one nurse
and half a dozen enlisted men of the
Medical Department. We had nurses
at this time, who did most splendid
and devoted work Later, as the hos
Ipital corps men became more skilled
we were able to dispense with their
services entirely. The consulting sur
1geOn of the division, Major Lee. divid-
ed his time between his tent and the
! operating room. He personally saw
leach new arrival, examined him, and
prescribed preOperative treatment. He
sorted the patients out and decided
according to urgency, upon their Oper-
iative priority AS the turn of each
came he was carried to the adjoining
tent where an X-Ray photograph was
taken. or microscopic examination
made, and the exact position of the
foreign body located and noted upon
the patients history card. Thus, when
he went to the operating room, the
history and examination were com
Iplete.
I'm the corner of the tent a badly
shocked patient was receiving an in
fusion of normal salt solution into the
imedian baSilic vein of his arm. A nurse
was holding aloft the glass container
from which the fluid steadily flowed,
while surgeon bent over the patients
iarm and controlled the flow. Farther
down the line young fellow, who
looked more dead than alive from Sc
were hemorage, was receiving trans
fusion of blood, voluntarily offered by
a soldier of one of the divisions in
training in our rear. The blood had
been collected in a glass flask, pre-
iserved by the addition of citrate of
soda, and sent forward to meet just
such an emergency as this stood
ispellbound and watched the suffusion
of pink, the token of returning life,
that gradually showed itself in those
alabaster white cheeks. AS the con-
Itents of the flask steadily lowered and
the color of the cheeks deepened,
icould only think that the day Of mir
Iacles was not past.
In the operating room three tables
were in use. The three teams, made
up each of a surgeon, his assistant,
land a nurse-the instrument passer-
looked jaded from their long, exhaust
ing day. On one table a perforating
wound of the chest was being sewed
up. On another an intestinal resection
had just been completed by the oper
ator, while his assistant was search
ing for a shell fragment deeply en-
bedded in the upper thigh. On third
patient. whom | had seen less than an
hour before passing through Field
Hospital One at Bezu, legation of the
Ibrachial artery was being performed.
Cases of similar gravity had been OPP
erated upon during the day, making
total of forty at this time. There was
an equal number in the admission
ward awaiting attention
"In ANOTHER hour the night shift of
operators would go on duty and would
find enough work to keep them going
hard until the FLOWING morning. AT