In France a movement is on foot to organize a volunteer automobile corps for the transportation of wounded. With the excellent roads that exist in that country, the wounded could often be transported in a few hours by automobiles to the reserve hospitals—thirty or forty miles from the front—instead of by the slow process of transportation by ambulance.
It is proposed to organize a volunteer corps of chauffeurs, including women, who are experts in the running of these machines.
In Italy the Red Cross has been continuing its great anti-malarial work in the Roman Campagna. It has several stations, and each station has a wagon, an ambulance and medical supplies, and a personnel of a medical officer, a man nurse and a conductor, each giving two months’ service.
In 1900 when the work began, 31 per cent. of those receiving the preventive treatment suffered from the fever. The report for 1905 shows that only a little over 5 per cent. were attacked by the malady; that is, out of 16,427 treated only 839 suffered from fever.
The Red Cross of the Netherlands reports relief rendered to a village which was partially destroyed by fire.
The Bulletin contains a long article on the Russian Red Cross. On January 1, 1905, not including Port Arthur, it had 158 ambulances of various kinds including hospital trains, and hospital accommodations in Manchuria for 27,911. This article shows so strongly the need of system and preparation beforehand that it is hoped a portion of it may be printed in some subsequent Bulletin of the American National Red Cross.
The Saxon Red Cross reports 70 Sanitary Columns with 2161 members, all of whom have received a special course of instruction. At Loschwitz a house for convalescents has been established and utilized for German soldiers returning from campaigns in South Africa.