Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 303, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1912 — HOSPITAL ON THE RAIL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOSPITAL ON THE RAIL

GOOD IDEA HAB BEEN EVOLVED IN SWITZERLAND. Invalid Who Can Afford to Pay the Price Can Travel in Perfect Comfort on These New Style of Cars. When people of means have a member of the family who is extremely 111,

yet desires to travel, either from their home to some famous health resort or from some resort back to their home, practically throughout Europe, Switzerland can furnish a “traveling hospital” for them. These traveling hospitals are railroad cars, with every modern equipment, and as the railroad gauge is standard for

the most part throughout the continent, this car may be hauled over any line of railroad. As the government of Switzerland owns its railroads, these traveling hospitals or hospital cars are federal property, always ready to be leased to any one who has the price. For a long time these cars have been operated, and they have been found to be a good investment, being in considerable demand at almost all times of the year. The sick room Is located In the middle of the long car. It Is finished in white enamel, with rounding corners to avoid all possibilities of dirt and germs, and every modern hospital appliance is to be found in it, from its white iron bed, sectional mattress and removable stretcher-like springs to the antiseptic leather couch and easy chair and adjoining lavatories. There Is also a roomJor the nurse and a couch for an emergency bed, operating table and linen closet. A kitchenette with electric cooking appliances is beyond the nurse’s room, —and there is also a heated baggage room, where domestics may find cots for sleeping. All doors are ball-bear-ing and noiseless, and the whole thing Is about as perfect an arrangement as far as details go, as could be found in any hospital. Patients have made trips from the tip of Italy’s “boot” clear to the northern German provinces without the least ill effects from the Journey.