To Miss Inglis, M.B., C.M., belongs the honour of originating the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, one of the noblest efforts achieved by women in the war. As a medical woman, Dr. Inglis, who qualified in 1892, has specialised in surgery, and for many years she has held the posts of surgeon and gynæcologist to the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, and lecturer to the School of Medicine in Edinburgh.
At the outbreak of war Dr. Inglis felt that the medical services of women should be organised for the country, and she originated the idea of forming the Scottish Women’s Hospital Units for war service, staffed entirely by women. The idea was carried out through the organisation of the Scottish Federation of Women Suffrage Societies. In the early months the War Office, though since converted, refused to accept women’s hospitals, so Dr. Inglis and her committee offered their services to the Allies. Their record of work is truly wonderful, and presents an outstanding example of women’s industry and administrative ability. Hospitals have been established and maintained in France, Serbia, Corsica, Salonika, Rumania, and Russia, and the work has been entirely supported by the funds which the organisation has raised, mainly through the branches of the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies throughout Great Britain.
Dr. Inglis has been throughout the leading spirit, and has displayed extraordinary initiative. After spending the first months of the war in starting the work at headquarters, she went to Serbia in 1915 to act as Commissioner to the Scottish Women’s Hospitals established there. One unit on its way to Serbia was detained for a few weeks in Malta for service with the British wounded at a moment of medical shortage, and Lord Methuen, the Military Governor, wrote a glowing appreciation of their work. “They leave here,” he wrote, “blessed by myself, surgeons, nurses, and patients alike, having proved themselves most capable and untiring workers.” In Serbia the Scottish women were confronted with all the hardships and difficulties experienced by workers in that unfortunate country. Undaunted, however, they established their hospitals, heroically overcoming the problems of sanitation and supplies which beset them on all sides. The hospital at Kragujevatz, over which Dr. Inglis had personal charge, was described by the military authorities as a picture of cleanliness, order, and comfort.
When the time of the Serbian retreat came, the five hospitals in charge of the Scottish women fell back towards Albania. At Krushevatz Dr. Inglis decided to remain with her staff to care for the Serbian wounded during the enemy occupation. Another unit under Dr. Alice Hutchinson also stayed, and was taken prisoner; while the remaining staffs accompanied the retreating armies across the mountains.
DR. ELSIE INGLIS
Bassano
To face page [33]
“These months at Krushevatz were a strange mixture of sorrow and happiness,” Dr. Inglis wrote afterwards. “There was a curious exhilaration in working for those grateful, patient men ... yet the unhappiness in the Serbian houses and the physical wretchedness of those cold, hungry prisoners lay always like a dead weight on our spirits.”
By February, 1916, the hospital was emptied and the staff sent as prisoners to Vienna. After enduring many discomforts, they were eventually released through the good offices of the American Embassy, and enabled to return to England, where their friends had heard no word of them during four months. When the veil was at last lifted, it showed Dr. Inglis coming out of all the stress and suffering the first woman to wear the decoration of the White Eagle, given to her by the Serbian Government in recognition of her services. Other members of her unit received the Order of St. Sava. “The Serbian nation,” said the Crown Prince, “will never forget what these women have done.”