SICK ARMY HORSES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2490, 17 June 1915, Page 9

SICK ARMY HORSES

Some particulars of tho remarkable work being done by the British Army authorities in France to restore wounded and sick horses to health are given by the "Daily Graphic." The first hospital is in a- fir wood. There are about a thousand horses in it, and tho hospital is divided into wards—a ward for surgical cases —the wounded horses; another ward for tho horses with pneumonia or bad colds, and yet another distant from tho others for the convalescents. Though they had been obliged to stand in incessant jain, roped by breast lines stretching from tree to tree, .nearly all of them were ,doing extraordinarily well. But the veterinary officers were waiting impatiently for tho shelters, because it was so hard on the horses with wounds and dressings, and so hard to treat them satisfactorily. For the worst wounded horses some barns and sheds had been found. . These danger wards are naturally the most interesting to a visitor. The wounds are chiefly those caused by shrapnel or bullet, and the recoveries have been wonderful. One of the officer's chargers in the hospital had been shot right through the neck, and had to undergo several operations before the scar healed. But he is now cjuite fit, and there seems to be no painful sensitiveness about the scar. No horse is operated on without chloroform, and very often painful dressings are treated with local anaesthetic. It is a touching fact, but tho horses learn to trust their nurses, and after the first dressing of their wounds are entirely docilo the next time, as if they recognised that tho treatment would lessen the P. a ' n * Familiarity makes them fond of tho hospital. 'Some eighty of them were recontly brought from tho convalescent side to a remount camp four miles away. They, were nearly all heavy draught horses, such as 0110 does not usually associate with agility. But the moment they wera turned out into their new paddocks they raced round, jumped the hedges and fences, and started back full peltfor hospital. Only fifteen of them found their way back, others having been headed off, and some having been found in a railway station, which they had reached by galloping dmvn the lino. Luckily they suffered 110 damage, and tho hospital received them with laughter and cheers. They could not have bolted from the remount camp out of distaste for it, because these camps are "continuation" convalescent farms. ' The horses stay there till absolutely fit for service, and are very carefully fed and looked after. They are quite free in big paddocks and meadows, and are still in receipt of rnedioal attention. In spite of the harassing weather, the veterinary officer at this remount camp is able to boast that not one of his 900 horses has a nnlrl

The horses towards the end of their probation are taken out and ridden, and are handled fairly frequently, so that they aro ready for service. When they are actually sent back they havo a few days' training in an advanced camp, and then go back to the front, where, owing to the life, they are often stronger and fit-tor for work than tho horses lately suit out from I'lngland.

A brilliant and startling spectacle was witnessed'"a short time b|?o in a Tyrolean valley nead Tanneheim. A violent, storm arose suddenly, and soveral globes of lightning rolled over the surface of the lake. Then a column of water arose 30ft. high from the middle of the lake, and from its top small fisho3 darted. The spectacle lasted about three minutes. llr. Norman Oollio announces nuolher or"at> recital in aid ol' Patriotic Fumls. Tins is to ho given this evening at 8 o'clock, in Trinity. Church, Newtown. Jli;s Ena Ward Will sing, «nd Ihe collection is to be jjiven to the Fund for Wounded Soldiers and Sailors, for Children's Hacking Couch at Night, Woods' Groat .Ptpwrwim. Cure, Is, W,*