A NOBLE WORK.

White Ribbon, Volume 23, Issue 275, 18 May 1918, Page 5

A NOBLE WORK.

SCOTTISH WOMEN’S HOSPITALS FOR WAR SERVICES. (Address by Mrs Elizabeth Abbott, given in the Town Hall (Concert Chamber), on Wednesday, January 9th, 1918.) An eloquent appeal on behalf of the Scottish Women’s War Service Hospital was made in the Com ert Chamber of the Town Hall, Wellington, on Januaiy 9th, by Mrs Elizabeth Abbott, who has already toured India and Australia lecturing on the splendid work of the hospitals. The lecturing tour has covered a space of two years, and since its inception Mrs Abbott’s appeals have resulted in th*‘ cabling Home of ,£.25,000 from India and Burmuh, and <>ooo from (Queensland. In returning thanks for the kindly welcome and hospitality she had received in New Zealand, Mrs Abbott said that she felt it had b' en accorded, not to herself, hut to the Scottish Women Hospital Workers. Wherever she has been the story of the work had been welcomed, and .1 ready response to the appeal had been met with. Mrs Abbott said she wished to stress the point that the work of the Scottish Women’.'. Hospital did not in any way overlap that of the British Red Cross. The two societies worked in unison and co-operated whenever possible, and the hospitals were greatly assisted by the Red Cross, which supplied them with “minor munitions,” su< h as dressings, etc. The Scottish branch of the Red Cross had made them important gifts, and last year sent them four motor ambulances for use on the battle front, believi..* that they could be sent to no better place. The various hospitals, camps, and canteens under the control of the oragnisation required /7000 a month to keep in working order, but she wished to make clear that the Scottish women had not simply collected funds and carried on the work as it suited their wishes. The growth of the movement had been made at tie demands of the military and civil authorities of the countries in which they worked. Mrs Abbott then told the story of tfv beginning and expansion of the hospitals. The organisation, she said, was founded in to'4. by a little band pf Scottish women, under the leader-

'.hip of Dr. Elsie Inglis. She was a woman not only of high attainments, hut of indomitable spirit, who knew that women rould manage peace hospitals, and was convinced that they could run war hospitals as well. The first donation of £lO was received from a school teacher, who gave her increase in salary to the < ause, and the first large sum was received from Scottish Women’s Federated Suffrage Society, which made a donation of j£iooo. Since then the movement had become British and Imperial in scope and appeal, and workers from all parts of the Empire had enlisted in its ranks. New Zealand, the most loyal of all the Empire’s dominions, had sent three women doctors to do their splendid part in the work —Dr. M iry Blair, Dr. Agnes Bennett, and Dr. Jessie Scott —and, Mrs Abbott felt r ure, would give further and willing help by a p*adv response to the appeal for funds to back these women and the Hospital in their endeavour to make easier the lot of sufferers, not only of the British race, but of all nations. The first hospital unit, under Dr. Alice Hutchison, was hurried across the Channel to Calais to deal with an epidemic of typhoid which was then raging. So successful was the effort, that the hospital was shortlv afterwards reported to have the lowest death rate of any in th< epidemic area. The venture had been kept under the close surveillance of the French authorities, who were so thoroughly satisfied, that the women were asked to establish a surgical hospital of 100 beds in the Abbey of Rx>yaumont, some twenty miles behind the firing line. The British papers, said the speaker, still wrote of the “M.racle of Rovaumont.” !t was a beautiful old abbey, with delightful historical associations, and wonderfully picturesque, hut it was far from an ideal hospital. The drains had been laid down in the time of Louis IX., and nothing had been done to them since; there was no lighting or heating apparatus, and no water was laid on. The first night after the arrival of the unit, five women slept on the floor of the cloister. However, they found a decrepit plumber and a friendlv electrician, and in five weeks the 13th century abb*v had been transferred into a modern hospital, with an operating theatre, a laboratory, and -greatest of 4II —an X-ray equipment. It was

the only X-ray plant within a very large area, and many patients were brought from other hospitals for treatment and diagnosis. Moreover, the Scottish women were the first to have a mobile X-ray equipment, fitted up by Madame Curie and Madame Eyreton, at a cost of jQ 1000, and this had been in use <ever since. The first hospital, of 100 beds, had started to receive cas* s only six hours after the final inspection by the French medical and military authorities. Twice since then the hospital capacity had been doubled, at the request of the French (lovernment, so that Koyaumont Abbey was now a 400 bed hospital. Even that was found insufficent to tope with the terrible rush of wounded which came in aff'r the big Somme push, for the men came in at the rate of 70 a day, and on the first day Dr. Frances Evens, who was in charge, operated from 9 o’clock one morning until 5 the next morning, takng only what food was brought to her, and some of the nurses worked 20 hours out of the 24, until they were completely exhaused, and had to be reinforced by others rushed across from England. A special feature of the work at Rovaumont was the treatment of the deadly gas gangrene, which must be immediately dealt with if life is to be saved. One of France’s most eminent medical men visited the hospital to study the dread disease, and the methods employed in its cure. A fleet of motor <ais and ambulances brought and took the wounded from the Abbey, and drivers, stretcher-bear-ers, orderlies, all were women. Royaumont at the present time took the less severe cases only, as another hospital of 230 beds had been op< ned nearer the firing line. Ihe success gained at Rovaumont led to a second demand by the French in the way of a camp hospital of 2 50 beds near the firing line. The French authorities, said Mrs Abbott, were perhaps afraid that such a camp, though very necessary, be a failure, and so they asked the women to make the attempt, for then if the scheme had failed, why, it was a case of mismanagement. The experiment, however, was far from a failure, and the organisation now maintaiiv'd a camp of 400 beds near Soissons in tents perfectly pitched and with excellent equipment. This again was the unaided work of women. General retain, after inspecting the camp, described it as a “little paradise for wounded men,”

The greatest honour of all was conferred upon the women when a unit of the hospital was attached to the French Expeditionary Force under General Sarrail, pioceedmg to Salonika, and then the women began to find out what hospital work in a foreign country, with no facilities, could really be. When the unit arrived, the only place for their camp was the filthy compound of a disused silk factory, and there they set to work to get their hospital together. Even their tent poles had been stolen by ttv' Greeks who brought their baggage up, hut when the second unit arrived their tent poles arrived safely. They had been told of the disappearance of the first consignment, and, said the speaker, “They sat on theirs.” No sooner had everything been put into working order than notice was received to evacuate and to return to Salonika. Here a semi morass was assigned them for a camping ground, but, in spite of all, they succeeded in establishing a model hospital, which had remained ever since, though it had been recently removed to a better site, and increased from ;>oo to 500 beds. In addition, a hut hospital was established near the firing line, and three canteens were also established for the benefit of French soldiers returning from the trenches. Continuing, the speaker dealt with the work in Servia. There had not been a more tragic nor a more gallant figure in the great war than Serv.a. It was not generally realised, said Mrs Abbott, that another nation beside Belgium had been overrun by the German hordes, and, moreover, that Servia had re-built and re-organised itself as a nation three times, until there was nothing left to rebuild. The first hospital of 100 surgical beds was established in 1915, under I)r. Saltaire, when the worst outbreak of typhus of modern times was raging throughout the country. There were no Red Cross, and few medical men, of whom two-thirds were British, French, or American, and the situation was desperate. In addition to the 100 surgical bed , Dr. Saltaire undertook to t°nd 50c fever patients. She cabled for help, and three more units were sent out. All through the summer and autumn they worked to the sound of the big guns at Belgrade, restoring the nation to health, several of them paying the price of their devotion with

their lives, but the women buried their dead and worked on. Even when the Austro-German thrust caused the evacuation, they protested that they should not be treated as mere women, but as surgeons and nurses, and should be allowed to remain with their patients. All would willingly have stayed, and finally two units were allowed to remain, in almost certain knowledge of being taken prisoner. The other units went over the Montenegrin Mountains to the sea with a strange medley, not of a retreating army, but of a nation, men, women and children, old and young. The terrible journey, of 200 mih's, over mountain passes 7000 feet high, took eight long weeks to accomplish, and all that time the women, starved, scantily clad, suffering, and never knowing what the morrow would bring, tended the refugee* wlio, weakened by the way, and, in many cases, tenderly cared for those who came into the world on that terrible journey. The safety of the nation lay over the mountains, but literally the journey was the “way of the Cross.” Dr. Hutchison’s unit, which had remained behind, was captured by the Austrians, and taken to Hungary, where they were treated as common prisoners. Dr. Hutchison through all carried the flag with her, wrapp’d round her body, and at last, when released from captivity, she waved the Union Jack from the window of the train as it passed over the Swiss border, to the accompaniment of “God Save the King.” Dr. Elsie Inglis fell into the hands of the Germans, and >he and her unit were kept tending 400 Servian sick and wounded under frightful disabilities ; while some qoo wounded were waiting for treatment. It was a terrible building, with but few beds and palliasses, and the compound was in an indescribable state. Two overflowing cesspools wer<* in its centre, and filthy heaps of rubbish, even the grisly remains from operations, lay about. The whole scene was indescribable terrible. Three young English women with Servian orderlies were set to clean the place, and they did it. It was not womanly work, for they emptied the cesspools with hand pumps, they cleaned the compound, dug drains, and made th" place into a hygienic hospital. There the unit

worked till March, 1916. when the Germans sent it back to England. The fifth unit, under Dr. Mary Blair, a New Zealand woman, never reached its intended destination, for the roads were blocked, so they cared for the refugees who poured into Salonika, and eventually went with them to Corsica, and had there remained supervising 2<xx> or 3000 Servians ever since. Their work was perhaps less .heroic at first sight than that of other units, but it is on the Island of Corsica that the nation was once more being built up. After the terrible exposure on the mountain roads many of the refugees were suffering from tuberculosis, and so successful had the women been in th n treatment of these cases that the French Government had asked the women to establish a similar hospital in the south ot France. Soon a call came from Macedonia, where wonderful work was done in organising an ambulance corps to bring wounded down precipitous and dangerous roads at all hours of the day and night to Monastir. Rumania asked for two field hospitals and equipment, and six weeks later they ‘were despatched, but the only possible rout," was via Archangel and overland through Russia. In the Dobrudja, the women worked often in the front lines, and under bombardment, unHl another retreat began. Only s ; x bulh-cfc waggons were available to g°t to the station the equipment which 600 had brought from it. The retreat was made through what was practically enemy territory, for the Germans had penetrated deeply into the country, and dangers were met with on every side. After the Russian collapse it becamt impossible to carry on the work, and the women returned after adventurous trips by widely different routes. Mrs Abbott spoke feelingly of the gallant work of Dr. Elsie Inglis, a woman of iron will and iron body, who, after terrible privations, brought her unit to England in November last, and two days after she had landed at Newcastle, died of utter exhaustion. “I shall never see my friend again,” said Mrs Abbott, “but the work which she founded must go on, so that she, although dead, may speak.” The Scottish Woman’s Hospitals had gone into the darkest places of the

European battlefronts without a thought of honour or glory, said Mrs Abbott, before closing her lecture, but honour and gratitude had come to them, and that alone was a worthy reward. In India and Australia thcr rt were many lotto: es and things of the kind in which a small sum was asked, and the chance of a big prize- was offered in return. “You cannot with your hands touch anything the Scottish Women can offer you in return, nor will your eyes see the gratitude that will be yours for the giving, but, ‘Blessed are <he merciful.’ ” Mrs Abbott closed her stirring address by quoting the lines of “The Field of Honour.” “THE FIELD OF HONOUR.” (By H. Fielding-Hall.) Child: “Where does the Field of Honour lie. For 1 would like- to know its story; is the place where heroes die, And dying, win eternal glory? “Where is the soil that always yields So much for such a little* given? Tell me, where are these battlefields From which men ris»* up straight to heaven ? “Father, the road I want to know, And you must t< 11 me all its story; And, when I’m old, I too will go And die upon the held of glory.” Father: He took the lad uj>on his knee, The curly head was on his shoulder : “My son, if you that field would see, You need not wait until you are older. “The field of honour always lies Wherever gallant folk arc living, And under whatsoever skies Their lives they are for honour giving : “Wherever noble deeds are done, Wherever pain and death are suffered In every land, ’neath every sun. . Where true self-sacrifice i-s offered. “Not onlv gallant soldiers who Have faced and dared the King of Shadow s ; All those whose* lives and deaths are true Lie buried in those sacr°d meadows. “And if, my Son, you wish to lie At last upon the Field of Glory, Live on it now ; and when you die You will not have to ask its story.”