Volume 1

The Imperial Yeomanry Hospitals in South Africa, 1900-1902 / edited by the Countess Howe.

  • Imperial Yeomanry Hospitals Committee.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The Imperial Yeomanry Hospitals in South Africa, 1900-1902 / edited by the Countess Howe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    REPORT OF W. RANGOON BROWN, M.D., Senior Physician, I.Y.H., Pretoria. The preliminary arrangements for the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at Pretoria had to be carried out with great expedition, for the formation of the hospital was not definitely decided upon till June 26th, 1900, and the advance guard sailed by the Norman on June 30th. It was just at this time that the lack of hospital accommodation was realised in England, so that our instructions were to exercise all possible speed. The hospital was to be a general hospital, and the personnel was to be ten medical officers, forty nurses, and about eighty orderlies. Far more medical than surgical work was expected, and with this in view it was decided to take enough sisters to enable the greater part of the actual nursing to be done by them and not by orderlies. Moreover, the alternative was between trained nurses and untrained orderlies, for it was almost impossible to obtain orderlies with any knowledge of nursing. I was commissioned to obtain as many of the medical officers as I eoidd for the Committee’s approval, and two days later seven had been appointed. At the eleventh hour I was fortunate to find that Dr. Sandwith was in London on leave of absence from Cairo, and was willing to join us. His report gives some slight idea of what he was able to accomplish in the short time he was with us, and throughout his experience and energy were of the greatest possible assistance to his colleagues. Another duty entrusted to me was to arrange for an equipment of drugs. This was no easy matter in the time, and as soon as it became clear that the bulk of drugs must follow and not accompany us, it was arranged that an emergency pocket case of compressed drugs should be prepared for each medical officer. In this way we hoped to be independent for a time of the delays which were bound to occur in the trans- port of our heavier luggage. But the ‘ best-laid plans ’ met their usual fate— these cases could not be delivered in time, and so they went with the heavy luggage, and we reached Pretoria without them. Four medical officers, twelve sisters, and eighty-one orderlies formed the advance party which left by the Norman on June 30th, 1900. Owing to the strain on the resources of the Army Medical Department we were obliged to start without a military