HOSPITAL LIFE
In 1915 there were 6,400 hospitals in France and 18,000 doctors. During
large offensives the wounded arrived in Paris at the rate of thirty
trainloads per day. In Lyons at one time there were 15,000 wounded men.
At Verdun 28,000 wounded men were treated in one hospital during a 25
day period. In the spring of 1918, 40 per cent of the entire French Army
had been killed, captured or hopelessly mutilated. Of the 60 per cent
remaining at that time there were 1,500,000 wounded and crippled men in
the hospitals of France. With the exception, as far as known, of the
American Hospital at Nice and the Scottish Woman’s Hospital at Royemont,
both of which maintain themselves, the pay for care and attendance of
each patient which comes from the French Government is limited to one
franc, 25 centimes per day (22½ cents). The balance is made up by the
Red Cross, individuals and communities, according to the largeness, or
smallness, of the views and pocketbooks of those who assist.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: SERBIAN MEDAL]
Hospitals are of two classes. They are in or out of the army zone. The
Army Zone is a piece of land under strict military law, extending,
possibly, twenty miles back from the trenches.
Ordinarily, weekly Red Cross trains carry the evacuated wounded, or
disabled, soldiers from the Army Zone to the interior. During a general
engagement trains wait, are filled with wounded from ambulances, and
sent away immediately as soon as filled.
A limited number of these decorations were presented by S. A. R., the
Prince Regent of Serbia, to President Poincaré of the French Republic,
for distribution to officers and men for distinguished and brilliant
conduct under fire. Two were allotted the 163rd Regiment of the Line—one
for an officer, the other to a private.]
The hospital in the Army Zone, necessary for military reasons, is not
looked upon with favor by the common soldier. It is too military. He has
his fill of red tape and regulations. He wants to forget there ever was
a war, or that he ever was a soldier. He regards discipline as he does
lice, and medicine and bad neighbors. It may be necessary to put up with
them but he does not wish to do so any longer than necessary.
If he must have a nurse, he does not want a limping, growling, medically
unfit man. He prefers placing his suffering-racked body, injured by the
hand of hate, where it can be nursed back to health with kindly
ministering love.
The sick soldier does not want to be pestered or bothered. He prefers to
be left alone. He does not wish a nosing uplifter to come and tell him
what he shall do, and what he shall not do. He had enough orders in the
army. Because he wears a uniform, he is none the less a man. He may not
be rich. But riches are no passport to heaven. He has only contempt for
lively humbugs, who ape superiority, and try to push something down his
throat which he does not want.
[Illustration]
In the Army Zone hospital, supposed to be sick, he is not allowed
outside except under certain conditions, and then in charge of a nurse.
When convalescent, he is quarantined in the Eclopes. Here, rather than
moon his time away, and to keep from going stark crazy, he asks to be
sent back to the front.
In the hospitals of the interior, he gets much more liberal treatment.
If able, he may wander about, without a chaperon, in the afternoons. He
will buy a red herring and walk up the middle of the street eating it.
Four men go into a shop, buy five cents worth of cheese, and each pays
for his own wine.
Store windows have an irresistible attraction for him.
Post cards hold his gaze for hours.
A whistling small boy brings him to a full stop. He has not heard such a
happy sound for a long time. He blesses the little fellow for showing so
much cheer in the midst of suffering.
After several days, he notices people stare at him a good deal. Yes, he
limps too much. Every step brings pain. He senses their kindly sympathy
but, somehow or other, resents it. So, he goes out into the country,
where, while he rests in the lap of Nature, the warm sun helps the
doctors coax the poison from the wound, rheumatism from the joints, and
shock from the system.
Away from the front, away from the busy haunts of men, all through
France, in chateaux, in old convents and high schools, in sisters’
hospitals, conducted by the Union of Femmes de France, the Society of
Dames Francaises, and the Society Secours aux Malades and Blesses
Militaires, under the kindly treatment of those unswerving, unflinching
nurses, he recovers his strength, then goes to the front for Freedom or
Glory Immortal.
I shall not forget the many little courtesies received in the French
hospitals at Saumur, Montreuil-Ballay, Remiremont, Pont de Veyle and
Bourg. Suffering unites the sympathetic. Pain is the barometer that
tests the human fiber. The soldier, who has been through the fire with
his fellows, who has been wounded, as they were, who suffered, as they
did, has an established comradeship that endures. He was interested in
them and they in him. When he is low and the day ahead looks dark and
dreary, he can feel their sympathy. Probably no word is spoken, but he
knows the whole ward is pulling for him. He does not want to disappoint
his friends. He rises to the occasion. That sympathy means the
difference between life and death.
In the early days of the war, flowers, cigarettes, reading matter and
luxuries, were showered upon wounded soldiers. Gradually, as private and
public interests demanded attention, visitors were compelled to work for
themselves, or for the State.
The faithful, never-tiring nurses patiently remain at their posts, color
washed from their cheeks, hands worn, seamed by labor, dark eyes,
flashing like stars of a wintry night, unceasingly, they work to bring
back to health those who almost died for them. In their sweet, white
uniforms, suppressing their own troubles with a jolly smile, they greet
and welcome the mud-stained, lousy, dirty poilu and give him an
affectionate word—far more efficient, a much better tonic, than
medicine.