MEDICAL CORPS IN SAMOA

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2310, 18 November 1914, Page 6

MEDICAL CORPS IN SAMOA

TRIBTJTE TO ITS WbRK. ; A member of the Expeditionary Force stationed in Samoa pays a high tribute to the work of the Army Service. Corps. In an extract from a letter,,which appearedl in the Auckland "Herald," the writer goes'on to say: "So far little has been said about those whose work is the most arduous. An:army wants as much, if not o more, feeding in peaceful occupation as when it is lighting, and without the Army Service Corps we should be in a sorry plight. Too much credit cannot be given to those men who have had' the feeding and comfort of the fore© in their hands. Men'may grumble at f times, as nien always will, but with our source of supplies four weeks away, for that is what it practically comes to with the Navua coming hero once a month, the result has been magnificent.'. ■ "The 'uninitiated'may imagine that because there are no hullet and sword wounds to heal, the Medical Corps has. had nothing to do since we came here. As a matter of fact, the reverse is the •true state of the case; they have been' quite busy all the time. '. Not that the fond mothers in Auckland need fly into a panic that their boys are being bo badly fed and housed and otherwise maltreated and'Hhat they become ill, because that is.not so; but with over 1000 men it stands to reason tbat a certain number of tnem are bound to have small ailment's, to suffer from accidents, and have lapses from their normal state of health owing to the change of climate, because it is not every man who can stand the change to the tropics,, or- who has. tho sense to keep himself fit when lie has got there. It is with cases of this kind and not with bullet wounds that the Medical Corps has had to deal, andrright nobly have they done it. The dootors have no easy time. All day long thoy are about from camp to camp, keeping an'eye on tho sanitation always a most important feature of this work, seeing: the men on sick -parade, giving the ambulance men instruction how to treat the smaller aches and pains, while they themselves attend to the more serious cases. The latter are promptly dispatched to the hospital on the hill outside Apia, whereour seven nursing sisters, like ministering angels, work by day and l night."