ARMY DOCTORS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 February 1917, Page 8

ARMY DOCTORS.

WONDERS WROUGHT IN THE WAR. The story of the British Medical Services' expansion to meet the requirements of a five-million army in the greatest war in history is a remarkable one. Before the war there was one grneral military hospital, which was so oiganised that ft could take over a public building in any town and transform it into a complete hospital with 520 lu-ds in a very short space of time. Today there are many such institutions, but instead of 520 beds the equipment is often more than a thousand, i To quote an authoritative source, "they have sprung up like mushrooms." They have also den till departments fitted with the latest appliances for dealing with jaw wounds, and eyo departments with consultants and 'workshops for making' lenses for any vision. In fact, our wounded men at these base hoi-pitals are treated by specialists as well and as promptly as'in London. The Colonial medical units have been expanded on the same lines, but excluding them there, r.m 10,000 oflicers and 70,000 11011eommifsioned oflicers and men in the R.A.M.O. to-day.

The medical services have reduced to a fine art the finding of "wounded men in No Man's Land and the removal of cases across bullet-swept positions. The Splendid organisation by which the wounded make their journey from the front, trench to the luxury of a basse hospital or a hospital ship bound for Knsrhiud has already been described bv Lord Nnrthcliffe in his book '"'At the War.'' ■1 he expansion of the oflicial medical services has beoirsupplemented bv a corresponding growth in voluntary aid. It has been said that without this aid the oflicial branches would have been seriously hampered. Besides the work in France, the British Red Cress and the St. John Ambulance Societies, among others, have done a gieat work at homo in earing for the maimod and sick. There are scores of hospitals in Great Britain which owe origin.' hud vovv often their maintenance, and certainly their efliciencv, to voluntary workers.