impossible for our professional brethren on the Continent to imagine
any treatment apart from a completely equipped hospital. Their one
idea seems to be to get the wounded back to a base hospital, and if
they die on the way it cannot be helped. The dressing-stations are
mere offices for their redirection, where they are carefully ticketed, but
where little else is done. Of course, it is true that the combatant forces
are the first consideration, and that from their point of view the
wounded are simply in the way, and the sooner they are carried
beyond the region of the fighting the better; but if this argument were
carried to its logical conclusion, there should be no medical services
at the front at all, except what might be absolutely necessary for the
actual transport of the wounded. I am glad to say that our later
experiences showed that the British influence was beginning to make
itself felt, and that the idea of the wounded as a mere useless
encumbrance was being modified by more humanitarian considerations.
And in a long war it must be obvious to the most hardened militarist
that by the early treatment of a wound many of its more severe
consequences may be averted, and that many a man may thus
be saved for further service. In a war of exhaustion, the ultimate
result might well depend on how the wounded were treated in the field.

The road was crowded with traffic, and it was quite dark before we
reached Antwerp. Our patient did not seem much the worse for his
journey, though that is perhaps faint praise. We soon had him in our
theatre, which was always warm and ready for cases such as this.
With energetic treatment his condition rapidly improved, and when we
left him to go to dinner we felt that our afternoon had not been entirely
wasted.