distance of less than twenty miles; and it would seem reasonable that
they might have had their medicine-cases up where they were needed by
that time.

These gentlemen pose as the most learned, expert, scientific, highly
trained body of medical men in the world. They are undoubtedly as well
trained, as highly educated, and as thoroughly proficient as the
medical officers of any army in the world. A summons of an ordinary
practitioner would bring with him his saddle-bags of medicines; no
physician in the city would pretend to answer even an ambulance call
without having a few simple remedies--in other words, an emergency
case; but it was an exception, and a very rare exception at that, to
find a medical officer who took the trouble to carry anything upon his
aristocratic back on that march to the front.

A conversation overheard between two medical officers on board a
transport just before landing may serve to partially explain the state
of affairs. Said surgeon No. 1 to surgeon No. 2, "We are going to land
this morning; are you going to carry your field-case?" To which
surgeon No. 2 indignantly replied, "No, I'm not a pack-mule!" Surgeon
No. 1 again inquired, "Are you going to make your hospital men carry
it?" To which surgeon No. 2 replied, "No; my men are not beasts of
burden." Both of these medical officers went ashore; one of them had
his field case carried; the other did not. Both of them were up at the
firing-line, both did good service in rendering first aid. Both of
them worked heroically, both seemed deeply touched by the suffering
they were compelled to witness, and both contracted the climatic
fever. But in the absence of medicines the role of the surgeon can be
taken by the private soldier who has been instructed in first aid to
the injured; for in the absence of medical cases and surgical