Farmcarts to Fords: a history of the military ambulance, 1790-1925

610 Pages·1992·3.56 MB·English

by  John S. Haller

Farmcarts to Fords : A History of the
title: Military Ambulance, 1790-1925 Medical
Humanities Series
author: Haller, John S.
publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
isbn10 | asin: 0809318172
print isbn13: 9780809318179
ebook isbn13: 9780585031385
language: English
Transport of sick and wounded--History,
Transportation, Military--History,
subject Ambulances--History, Ambulances--history,
Military Medicine--history, Transportation
of Patients--history.
publication date: 1992
lcc: UH500.H35 1992eb
ddc: 355.3/45
Transport of sick and wounded--History,
Transportation, Military--History,
subject: Ambulances--History, Ambulances--history,
Military Medicine--history, Transportation
of Patients--history.
Page iii
Farmcarts to Fords
A History of the Military Ambulance, 17901925
John S. Haller, Jr.
S I U P
OUTHERN LLINOIS NIVERSITY RESS
Carbondale and Edwardsville
Page iv
Copyright © 1992 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Duane E. Perkins
Production supervised by Natalia Nadraga
96 95 94 93 92 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haller, John S.
Farmcarts to Fords: a history of the military ambulance, 17901925 /
John S.
Haller, Jr.
p. cm. (Medical humanities series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Transport of sick and wounded History. 2. Transportation, Military
History. 3. Ambulances History. I. Title. II. Series.
[DNLM: 1. Ambulances history. 2. Military Medicine history.
3. Transportation of Patients history. 500 H185f]
UH500.H35 1992
355.3'45 dc20
DNLM/DLC
for Library of Congress 92-3772
ISBN 0-8093-1817-2 CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of AmericanNational Standard for Information Sciences Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Page v
FOR
John, Kay, Nonie, and Lee
Page vi
No spectacle is more painful than that of the carriage of the wounded, the
sick, and the dying in the midst of a campaign. It is the blackest page of war.
The triumphs of the battlefield are all dimmed in looking at this inevitable
sequel. It is needful to have seen it to comprehend it, for official dispatches
and history tell but little of the reality.
Sir Henry Holland,
Recollections of Past Life, 1872
Page vii
Contents
Plates ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Part One/ Early History
1. Beginnings of a System 7
2. Early Ambulance Technology 40
Part Two/ Consolidation
3. A World in Transition 61
4. Old and New Thinking 90
Part Three/ The Great War
5. New Challenges 145
6. Trials of Evacuation 163
7. Lessons Learned 184
Notes 205
Selected Bibliography 235
Index 257
Page ix
Plates
Following page 110
1. Larrey's two-wheeled ambulance
2. Percy's surgical wagon
3. Percy's stretcher-bearers in marching order
4. Percy's stretcher fitted for carrying wounded men
5. Squire's organizational model for a division hospital
6. The common dandy and Bareilly dandy
7. A convoy of sick in camel kujjawas and a camel dhoolie
8. Mule cacolets or chairs
9. A freight car fitted with eight spring-bed stretchers
10. The China wheelbarrow ambulance
11. Neudörfer's two-wheeled litter, open for wounded
transport, packed for carriage
12. Neuss's two-wheeled litter
13. The Moses ambulance wagon and tent
14. The Coolidge ambulance wagon
15. The Tripler ambulance wagon
16. The Wheeling or Rosecrans ambulance wagon
17. The Rucker ambulance wagon
18. An army wagon fitted up as a Langer ambulance wagon
19. The interior of an improvised hospital railcar
20. A Dakota Indian travois
21. A wounded soldier conveyed on a double-mule litter
22. McElderry's single-mule litter
23. The Rooker saddle attachment packed to a McClellan
saddle

Page x
24. The Rooker saddle attachment for support of a wounded
soldier
25. The Autenrieth medicine wagon
26. Medical supplies carried on a two-pack mule
27. The U.S. Army medical transport cart
28. The British army sick-transport wagon
29. The Hamburg system of stretcher suspension in an
improvised railcar
30. A saddle support for wounded calvary
31. A bicycle ambulance
32. Carter's "simplex" ambulance
33. Apparatus for carrying a wounded man on a soldier's back
34. Diagram of the British army evacuation organization
35. Diagram of the U.S. Army evacuation organization
36. Two-wheeled farmcart
37. Stretchers slung between two wheels, leaving the trenches
38. Stretcher-bearers returning from no-man's-land, Somme,
1916
39. German prisoners carrying wounded men in a waterproof
sheet
40. Colt trench stretcher, Willis stretcher, Victor stretcher
carrier, and Blackham stretcher carrier
41. An overhead trench railway ambulance trolley
42. Ambulance cars on a temporary railway
43. Decauville light-railway system fitted for carrying
wounded soldiers
44. A camel cacolet for recumbent patients
45. A German streetcar commandeered for transport of
wounded
46. Ambulances for carrying mustard gas patients
47. The Belgian field ambulance motorcar