We have this month, in the article ‘An Order of Mercy’ (p. 15
[Transcriber’s note: See https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64345.]),
described the operations of the St John Ambulance Association, London,
and are pleased to be able to notice that a similar organisation is
being set on foot in the Scottish metropolis. The subject was recently
brought before the public by Professor Chiene, of the Edinburgh
University, in a lecture delivered under the auspices of the Edinburgh
Health Society. The lecturer spoke of the importance of speedy aid to
those who are hurt, and to those who are taken suddenly ill in our
streets. At present, in such cases, he said, such persons came under
the care of kindly bystanders or the police, none of whom have received
any instruction whatever in what is now commonly known as ‘first aid
to the sick or wounded.’ The person was placed either in a cab or
on a police-stretcher, and the lecturer could imagine nothing worse
adapted for the conveyance of a patient with a fractured limb than a
cab. In the case of the police-stretcher, the only advantage it had
was the recumbent posture of the patient; in every other particular it
was a most inefficient means of conveyance. He asked if the time had
not come when they should try and find some remedy. In London, the St
John Ambulance Association had been in existence for seven years; in
Glasgow, the St Andrew’s Ambulance Association was now in full working
order; and surely Edinburgh, with all its charitable organisations,
with its important hospitals, with the largest medical school in Great
Britain, should not be behind in this important matter. During the last
three years an average of seven hundred and twenty cases of accident
each year had been treated as in-patients in the Royal Infirmary; many
other cases had been taken there, their wounds and injuries dressed,
and afterwards sent to their own homes. Many cases of accident were
conveyed directly to their own homes; many cases of sudden illness were
conveyed either to the hospital or their own homes, and he did not
think he was over-estimating it when he said that fifteen hundred cases
occurred every year in Edinburgh which would benefit from a speedy and
comfortable means of conveyance from the place of accident to the place
of treatment. In the formation and working of such a society, he would
give all the help he could. Mr Cunningham, the secretary of the Glasgow
Association, had the cause at heart; and he was sure Mr Miller, one of
the surgeons in the Edinburgh Infirmary, and Dr P. A. Young, both of
whom had already given ambulance lectures to Volunteers, would give
their hearty help. Many of the junior practitioners and senior students
would, he was sure, assist as lecturers; and they would soon have in
Edinburgh a ready band of certificated assistants, who would give
efficient first aid to any one who was injured, and would assist the
police in removing them to the hospital or their own homes.
We are glad to observe that as one result of Professor Chiene’s appeal,
a Committee of Employers in Edinburgh and Leith is being formed for
the purpose of having employees instructed in the manner proposed, so
that many of the latter may be able to give practical assistance in the
event of accidents happening where they are employed.