Note 20 — Chapter VIII · Railway Ambulance Transport

In an article on "Military Hospital Trains; their Origin and Progress," in The Railway Gazette of December 4, 1914, it is said: "The comparatively small loss of the Germans by death from wounds in 1870 was due solely to the fact that they entered upon the war with what were then considered wonderfully elaborate arrangements for removing the wounded.... The trains were composed partly of first-class carriages, for the less badly wounded, and partly of covered goods wagons.... In these covered vans were placed beds formed of boards laid on springs. Each van would hold four or five men, and a sister rode in the van." One would not, however, consider to-day that there was anything wonderfully elaborate in an arrangement under which no more than four or five sufferers were accommodated in each goods van.