GREAT BRITAIN
[From Daily Mail (Great Britain), August 18, 1909.]
The Red Cross in Every Home.
We are enabled to give to-day full details of one of the most remarkable developments of the voluntary principle in English life. It is a scheme which makes a great and comprehensive effort to enlist the patriotic services of all classes for a humane purpose—the succor of the sick and wounded in war. Further, the scheme will associate with the Territorial Force thousands, including women, who can not themselves serve in our army for home defense.
The War Office, the County Association, and the British Red Cross Society are all engaged in the appeals which will be put forward from to-day to members for the general purpose of urging them to join the new Red Cross detachments which are to train for the assistance of the Territorial Army Medical Corps in war. No one need be left out. In the detachments may be included peers, peeresses, landowners, ladies of the manor, squires, squires’ wives, local doctors, trained nurses, chemists, chemists’ assistants, carpenters, women cooks, joiners, smiths, drivers, mechanics, grocers, and butchers.
Many other occupations could be named whose everyday knowledge would be of special utility in war. All will be welcomed in the new “organization of voluntary aid in England and Wales,” the proposals for which were yesterday submitted to the County Associations and the Branches of the British Red Cross Society.
Famous Surgeons Aid.
Its details were the work of Sir Alfred Keogh, Inspector-General of the Army Medical Service at the War Office, backed by the enthusiastic assistance of Sir Frederick Treves, the famous surgeon, whose experiences in South Africa have given him an unequalled expert knowledge, and Sir Richard Temple. Already there exists an organization which would come into active operation the moment war is declared, and which provides for the manning of general hospitals throughout the kingdom.
To these, scattered all over the country, in Cambridge, Brighton, London, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and elsewhere, are attached all the best medical men in Great Britain. There are, to name only a few, Sir Watson Cheyne, Sir T. Barlow, Sir T. C. Allbut, Sir T. Oliver, Dr. Norman Moore, Dr. Gibson (Edinburgh), and Sir Hector Cameron (Glasgow). The names of these voluntary officers of the force, colonels, majors, and captains, who only assume their rank in war time, fill twenty-four columns of this month’s Army List.
To them would fall the task of succoring the sick and wounded who were brought to them from the field hospital and the ambulances. Unlike France and Germany, we have no line of communication by which the victims of war can be passed from the fighting line to safety in the hospital far in the rear. The Red Cross Society and the English people are now asked to meet the want. The scheme is so to train the inhabitants of our towns and villages that they can render first aid after a battle, convey the wounded to the nearest hospital, and forward them on through a chain of similar units from rest house to rest house till the base hospital is reached.
Sir Alfred Keogh has so planned his proposals that no one in future will be able to say that he or she can not assist in the duties of the Territorial Force. He takes the village as a unit. In each he places a Red Cross detachment, in which both men and women may share. The commandant may be some one of leading in the place, and the women’s portion of the detachment will have a lady superintendent, a position which, it is hoped, some one of note will always be ready to fill.
Details of the Scheme.
Every voluntary aid detachment will be so arranged as to admit of dividing into two complete half detachments, thus:
Men—Commandant, medical officer, quartermaster, pharmacist, assistant pharmacist, under officer and 12 men; assistant commandant, medical officer, quartermaster, pharmacist, assistant pharmacist, under officer and 12 men.
Women—Commandant (medical officer), quartermaster, lady superintendent, ten women (including one trained nurse); assistant commandant (medical officer), assistant quartermaster, lady superintendent, ten women (including one trained nurse).
Under the commandant will be two sections, each commanded by an officer, who ought to be the village doctor. Their under officers will again be the chemist and his assistants. The men of the sections will be made up of tradesmen and workmen. Each will have an assigned duty. The carpenter and the smith would train to convert the church and the school into a hospital, make ready carriages and carts to convey wounded and sick, and fit up railway wagons, coal trucks, and the like for a similar use.
Others would prepare in peace time, so that when mobilized they could go to a house here or a house there, obtain beds promised beforehand, and fit them up in the temporary hospital, procure tables for operations, lay in the necessary food and fuel. Under the lady superintendent is to be the trained nurse, and her associates are to include those who have volunteered as cooks, and others who will look after the cleanliness of the hospital, wash clothing, and do all those thousand and one tasks which make for the comfort and the restoration to health of ailing men. In the larger towns and cities there may be dozens of these splendid organizations for making less terrible the dreadful results of war.
The Red Cross detachments have no place in our regular service. Because our forces serve over seas the War Office itself provides the necessary chain of hospitals and communications for bringing the wounded to the base. But the Territorial Forces are created only for service at home, and the hope is that those who can not for any reason join its ranks may at least render valuable assistance as members of their local Red Cross detachment.
The Central Council of the Red Cross Society will superintend the scheme, and the local Branches in the counties will cooperate with the various Territorial Associations in carrying out arrangements. The main object will be the base hospital, which is even now part of the Territorial Force organization. Beyond that, however, it is hoped that the Red Cross organizations and the general public may provide a convalescent hospital, where the men wasted by war may recruit before, if necessary, returning to the fighting line.
In time of war the organization would be: Fighting line, Territorial Army Medical Service, field ambulances, clearing hospitals, voluntary aid detachment, rest stations, ambulance trains, general hospital, convalescent depot, and homes.