Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 262, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1917 — WOUNDED ARE GIVEN BEST OF CARE [ARTICLE]

WOUNDED ARE GIVEN BEST OF CARE

Officer, Many Times Injured, Loud in Praise of Hospital Service. TELLS OF HIS EXPERIENCES I ■>' < Many American Girls Among Nurses on the Western Front—Man With Artificial Hand Pulls Grewsome Joke on Visitors. Washington.—“ The hospital service on the western front is excellent-” saldLieutenant —— , of th'e Royal Flying corps. ''“J ought to know. I’ve had enough experience with it. Everything is done to make the less seriously wounded man comfortable, and no effort is spared to save the more critically wounded man’s life. “I used to get Into the Hospital -at Boulogne so often that the nurses got to know ' me very well. They are splendid women, these nurses, and' there are more American girls among them than you might suppose. They got to saying ‘he’s back again,’ after I had been there fottr or five times. I seldom heard them because I usually was unconscious. But they always gave me my favorite bed and the attendants I liked best. morning, after I had been unconscious for more than—a week, I woke up in England, instead’ of at Boulogne. I knew then that I must have been seriously Injured. The men most seriously injured—those not expected to live —usually are sent to Ramsgate. From London I went to Ramsgate. They have a wonderful hospital there. —■ Take the Sea Air.~ — “Down along the water-front there is a great promenade. It is perhaps 75 feet wide. When ‘hopeless’ casos

have been cured they are given wheel chairs which they propel with their hand; and sent down to the projnennde foi the sea air. I saw many funny things on that promenade.' The favorite sport was for about fifty of these men, some without legs, some without arms, to join their chairs together ajad, after getting up speed, play at ‘crack the whip.’ Then there would tie jopsting matches, the men charging at each other with their chairs. The winner was the one who succeeded in throwing the other man -Qtit of his chair. Frequently the results doctors had secured after months of painful work were undone in this way. • „ . • “It used to be funny and sometimes pathetic to see the men trying out their artificial limbs. There were two long iron rails supported by posts between which the men with artificial, legs would practice. They would grip the rails with their hands and walk from one end of the path to the other. The stunt was to turn around with hands off the rails. Many a time I ■have seen a man go sprawling when one of his legs went cut from under him. Rather G reyvsoine Joke. —“There was one chap at Ramsgate who used to have a great deal of fun out of an artificial hand. It got to a point where his companion invalids would make him pledge that he wouldn’t pull his ‘hand joke’ when they introduced him to their women friends. “ ‘You’re right,’ he’d said, 'that Joke is pretty crude. I won’t pull ft again.’ But when the time for the Introduction eame the impulse was irresistible. The chap would put out his false hand for the girl to shake and then would pull his arm away, leaving the hand in her grip. More than once I’ve seen that hand droji on the hard floor of the promenade while the girl snrleked in horror.”