The floors are tiled, the walls, ceiling and all furnishings white.
Attached to the operating rooms is a fully equipped laboratory and an
X-ray room. I was shown the stereoscopic X-ray apparatus by which the
figure on the plate stands out in relief, like any stereoscopic
picture. Every large hospital I saw had this apparatus, which is
invaluable in locating bullets and pieces of shell or shrapnel. Under
the X-ray, too, extraction frequently takes place, the operators using
long-handled instruments and gloves that are soaked in a solution of
lead and thus become impervious to the rays so destructive to the
tissues.

Later on I watched Doctor DePage operate at this hospital. I was put
into a uniform, and watched a piece of shell taken from a man's brain
and a great blood clot evacuated. Except for the red cross on each
window and the rattle of the sash under the guns, I might have been in
one of the leading American hospitals and war a century away. There
were the same white uniforms on the surgeons; the same white gauze
covering their heads and swathing their faces to the eyes; the same
silence, the same care as to sterilisation; the same orderly rows of
instruments on a glass stand; the same nurses, alert and quiet; the
same clear white electric light overhead; the same rubber gloves, the
same anæsthetists and assistants.

It was twelve minutes from the time the operating surgeon took the
knife until the wound was closed. The head had been previously shaved
by one of the assistants, and painted with iodine. In twelve minutes
the piece of shell lay in my hand. The stertorous breathing was
easier, bandages were being adjusted, the next case was being
anæsthetised and prepared.