A Civilian War Hospital; being an account of the work of the Portland Hospital and of experience of wounds and sickness in South Africa 1900 with a description of the equipment cost and management of a civilian base hospital in time of war

Abstract

THE Portland Hospital was a hospital organised and equipped by voluntary effort in this country for service in South Africa. It was the first of several similar hospitals sent out after the declaration of war in October 1899; but it was not the first voluntary hospital ever attached to a British Army at the front, as the authors suggest in their preface. One well-knowh hospital, for example, the hospital which is now the British Hospital at Port Said, was originally established as a voluntary hospital for the sick and wounded of the Egyptian Campaigns. The Portland Hospital, however, has the credit of being the first example in this country of a voluntary undertaking on behalf of the sick and wounded being placed entirely in the hands of the military medical authorities for organisation, equipment and management. Formerly the promoters of such undertakings preferred to act independently and, as a matter of fact, to run counter to official medical authority, believing that their usefulness would be in proportion to the extent to which they could over-ride the restrictions imposed by military discipline and control. Continental nations have long ago recognised the folly of this conception, and the Portland Hospital has the merit of having led the way in this country towards a loyal recognition of the necessity of voluntary aid in war becoming an integral part of the military medical organisation. The dedication of the volume to the Principal Medical Officer of the Field Force and to the Officers of the Military Hospital, to which the Portland Hospital was attached, indicates the success of this more modern conception of the value of voluntary aid in war.