AMBULANCE Corps are replaced by natives graded as ward servants, cooks, water-carriers, and sweepers. The caste system necessitates this division of labour, and the men are not so efficient or so trustworthy as the regular soldiers whose places they take. The bearers of the sick and 'wounded are a separate and distinct class, as above explained, and they are in part attached to regiments as a portion of the regimental transport, and in part to the field hospital bearer companies on mobilization. The dandies, a more portable form of the old-fashioned dhoolie, are very comfortable, and have a canvas roof and curtains to keep off sun and rain. They are borne slung on a long bamboo upon the shoulders of four or more men, but being very heavy and clumsy are not wall suited for mountain warfare; moreover, as they cannot be folded up into a smaller
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j compass for transport like a stretcher, they take up a I great deal of room in railway trucks, and cannot be carried on the backs of animals. Hence riding ponies and mules are much used in Indian warfare for transporting the less severely wounded men. The ambulance tongas of India are small, very strongly built two-wheeled bullock or mule carriages capable of carrying four men seated or two lying down; but the most serious cases are carried in dandies all the way from the field to the hospital. In India it is necessary to provide separate hospitals for the white and black troops, and also to have accommodation in the latter case for the large numbers of non-combatant campfollowers who are employees of the commissariat department, servants, grooms, cooks, bullock- and mule-drivers, and the like. The frontier war of 1897-98 may be taken
Fig. 3.—Plan of British Army Ambulance. to illustrate the medical organization of the Indian army. In that war 18,688 white troops, 41,677 native troops, and 32,696 followers were engaged, and for the accommodation of these there were fourteen field hospitals for white troops and twenty-two for native troops, each having 100 beds. Attached to the corps engaged were 150 dandies, 274 stretchers, and 900 bearers, while the field hospitals and bearer companies had a personnel of 9658, with 720 dandies and 720 tongas. Field hospitals are each supposed to provide accommodation for 100 patients, who live upon their own field rations suitably and supplemented by. medical Hasp ta s. com for{-s. cooked Yhe patients are not supplied with hospital clothing, nor do they have beds, but lie on straw spread on the ground and covered with waterproof sheets and blankets. Thus field hospitals can and must at times accommodate more than the proper number of patients, but in the South African war their resources were at times con-
siderably overtaxed, with consequent discomfort and hardship. These hospitals are supposed to move with the army, and therefore it is imperative to pass the wounded quickly back from them to the hospitals on the lines of communication (which vary in number according to the length of that line), and thence to the general hospital at the base. The size of these hospitals on the lines of communication varies according to circumstances ; they are as a rule dieted —that is to say, proper hospital diets and not field rations are issued to the patients, who also have beds and proper hospital clothing. In these hospitals there may be nursing sisters, who are unsuited for the rough life and work nearer the front. Sisters may also be employed on the hospital trains, which were found very useful in the South African war, being fitted with beds, kitchens, dispensaries, &c., so that the patients were removed long distances in comfort. Having arrived at the base of operations the wounded are transferred to the general hospitals. The numbers and S. I. —45
