For at least ten or a dozen years past our larger American circuses have used portable electric-lighting plants on their various itinerant trips across the land—with a fair degree of success. Those circuses gave our Red Cross in France an inspiration. Lieutenant Harry C. Hand, a director in its Central Department of Requirements, in studying the markets for the proper sort of equipment, used them as models and so evolved, as a plant most practical for Red Cross needs, a three-and-a-half kilowatt outfit consisting of a gasoline engine, an electric generator, and a switchboard. This outfit, mounted upon a stout camion, would light 135 incandescent lamps of twenty-five watts each. On its travels it carried in its lockers the lamps, extension cords, sockets, and the like to make them available for almost instant service. And the Red Cross in the heart of the war emergency had five of these outfits at its service in France.
One other allied factor in this hospital supply service deserves attention before we finally turn away from it. I have referred from time to time to the vast quantities of drugs which our Red Cross distributed to both its own and other hospital centers. It was obvious that this distribution had to be centralized, and because of the delicate and extremely valuable nature of this particular form of supplies be kept quite separate and distinct from the others. So "The Red Cross Pharmacy," as it was generally called, came into existence, at a former apartment building at No. 10 Rue de Tilsitt, Paris, and quickly came to such importance that it was made the headquarters of the Section of Hospital Supplies, which in turn was a division of the larger Bureau of Hospital Administration.
Throughout all of the hard months of the war this section boasted that each night found the requisitions for that day filled. There were no left-overs; not even when a single day's work meant fifty-six huge orders entirely completed, and little rest for a staff which averaged forty-one men and women.
The pharmacy was well systematized. In its basement were the receiving, the packing, and the shipping departments, while upon its broad main floor the drugs and antiseptics were actually stored, the second floor being given to dental supplies, surgical instruments, rubber goods, sutures, serums, laboratory equipment, and the like. Each of these various departments was in charge of a specialist, a man of many years' experience in the line which he headed.
By June, 1918, the pharmacy in the Rue de Tilsitt had become of such importance that it was re-created into a Section of Supplies, with Major George L. Burroughs, of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston, as its sectional chief. Within a month he had found the demands upon his department so much increased that he was forced in turn to increase its facilities—by the addition of two warehouses. In another six weeks a new burden was placed upon his shoulders—the distribution of all alcohol, ether, oxygen, and nitrous acid issued by our Red Cross, which meant, of course, more space needed—so the unused powder magazine at Fort D'Ivry and the riding academy at No. 12 Rue Duphot—both loaned by the French Government authorities—were added to the quarters of the pharmacy.
Some idea of the amount of work undertaken and accomplished by this Red Cross pharmacy may be gained when it is understood that in the six months ending January, 1919, 75,016 pounds of drugs were issued from it. There were in that time 3,954,178 tablets, 21,566 phials of serum, 271 surgical units, 15,108 pairs of rubber gloves, and 22,059 feet of adhesive plaster, in addition to many hundreds of packets of other drug supplies.
Seemingly we have drifted away from our American boys, sick or wounded and in hospitals. In reality, of course, we have not. Every one of these provisions, large or small, was aimed directly at their comfort, while each deserved to be rated as a necessity rather than comfort—comfort, at least, as the average luxury-loving American knows it. It was comfort rather than luxury that I found our boys enjoying there at Savenay—long, comfortable huts, builded hurriedly but furnished with great care, great taste, and great attractiveness. Savenay, itself, was a good deal of a mud-hole, a fearfully wretched place underfoot. The Red Cross huts shone brilliantly in contrast. Here, as in the canteens all over France, the boys might congregate—practically at all hours—and amuse themselves as their fancies dictated; or, if fancy grew a bit bored, it was part of the job of the directress—one of whose essential qualifications was resourcefulness and another versatility—to find some new form of amusement. It was not enough to hand out the cigarettes—one or two packs a week—or the pipes and the playing cards and the tobacco, pretty much as requested—there had to be shows. The American passion for play-acting is something to be reckoned with.
Perhaps you do not quickly understand how versatile those very shows might readily become. Let me quote from Toot Sweet—the little fortnightly newspaper which our American Red Cross printed for the boys convalescing there at Savenay. That is, the Red Cross furnished the printing press, the type, and the rest of the paraphernalia for the making of the publication; the boys, themselves, supplied the brains that made it so very readable at all times.