A report on a plan for transporting wounded soldiers by railway in time of war : with descriptions of various methods employed for this purpose on different occasions / by George A. Otis.

  • Otis, George A. (George Alexander), 1830-1881.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report on a plan for transporting wounded soldiers by railway in time of war : with descriptions of various methods employed for this purpose on different occasions / by George A. Otis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    55/72 (page 47)
    General Count Heyden, several staff-officers, military surgeons and others from military and civil life participating. The commission, after careful examination, arrived at the following conclu- sions. 1. The transportation of the sick and wounded must be carried on mainly by the use of box-cars, as they form more than nine-tenths of all railway rolling stock. 2. Conversion of the cars to the purpose of transport- ing wounded at the shortest notice must be practicable, and preliminary measures must be undertaken in time of peace. 3. At the outbreak of hostilities, all appliances for the outfit of hospital cars must be immediately sent to points where it is anticipated that many wounded will be concentrated. 4. As a rule, litters are to be used for the transportation of the wounded; but, in cases of extreme necessity, a deep layer of straw on the bottom of the car^ may be substituted. ■ It was further observed that it was of the utmost importance that the box- cars to be used for the transport of severely wounded should have end-doors passage ways lengthwise, to permit easy intercommunication; and that, as the box-cars do not ofler sufficient accommodation for veiy severely wounded, special sanitary trains should be formed of cars of classes 1, 2, and 3, and at once be forwarded to the seat of war. Box-cars without longitudinal passages may be used for slightly wounded, and it is recommended that in the making up of trains, passenger cars with the badly wounded, and all cars with end- doors be placed at the head of the train. The doors are to be widened, which may be accomplished by the construction of special doorways to be put together with an extra piece. Regarding the putting up of the litters, these experts decided that the system of vertical stanchions, to be provided in times of peace, would be the most serviceable, but that the cars should be so arranged as to admit of prompt alterations. The labor of this commission doubtless inspired the ingenious plan of railway transport for recumbent wounded patients devised by Mr. Zavodovsky which is the special object of this report. Without submitting this system to the test of actual experiment, it would be, perhaps, unfair to definitively decide on its merits; but enough is known of the working of analogous systems to permit an approximative judgement to be formed. In Mr. Zavodovsky's plan litters are hung on ropes depending from swinging poles (Fig. 51, p. 51), which it is proposed to cut in the nearest forests. It may be objected to this mode of suspension, that it would be diffi- cult to find a sufficient number of poles eight feet long and of suitable thick- ness and uniformity in strength. The elasticity would be anything but equable, the extremities of the poles necessarily yielding more than the middle portions. The numerous rope fastenings constitute another disadvantage; for it is pro- posed to leave the outfit to inexperienced hands, and there might well be insecurity in some one of the nine knots requisite for the suspension of each litter. The attachments to the floor appear very inadequate and insecure. In