§ 41. Mr. LYNCHasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether a certain number of medical officers are attached to each division at the front whose services are limited exclusively to that division, or whether, when a single division is engaged in a struggle of such protracted length that its medical officers and staff are exhausted, medical officers from a neighbouring division which has not been engaged can be drafted over into the exhausted division for its relief and the saving of the wounded?
§ Mr. TENNANTWhat my hon. Friend suggests not only can be done but is done. It is the duty of the higher military authorities to distribute the medical officers under their command so as to meet the various exigencies which may arise. The water-tight compartment arrangement is obviously undesirable.
§ Mr. LYNCHIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that only recently it happened that some medical officers were employed for fifty-two hours at a stretch, while the medical officers of another division were completely unemployed?
§ Mr. TENNANTObviously I can have no knowledge of that fact. If the dates and places are brought to my notice, I shall have inquiry made.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMIs the right hon. Gentleman not aware that when a Cavalry corps reached the trenches there was only one medical officer to attend to all casualties?
§ Mr. TENNANTThat is a contingency that might happen.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMAnd were not a number of lives lost owing to this shortage?
§ 42. Mr. LYNCHasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he will give the names of those whom he has described as unofficial members of the Advisory Board for Army Medical Services; whether Sir A. Bowlby and Sir J. Rose Bradford sit on that board as civilian representatives while they are at the same time holding military posts; and, if so, by whom are civilian interests represented on that advisory board?
§ Mr. TENNANTThe unofficial members are Professor Kenwood, Sir John Rose Bradford, Professor Leonard Hill, Sir Anthony Bowlby, and Sir Charles Cameron. Sir Anthony Bowlby and Sir John Rose Bradford represent surgical and medical knowledge respectively. They were not put on the board as representative of what my hon. Friend calls civilian interests. The board is an Advisory Board for Army Medical Services.
§ 43. Mr. LYNCHasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the Army Medical Department has under consideration any scheme of so arranging hospitals and hospital work at the front; and whether by the provision of movable hospitals, or by a closely connected series of hospitals within a short distance of the firing line, that operations on the severely wounded might be undertaken with the least possible delay?
§ Mr. TENNANTI do not quite understand the first paragraph of my hon. Friend's question. As regards the hospitals referred to in the second paragraph I may say that use has been made of this description of hospital for many months.
§ Mr. LYNCHIs it not the fact that wherever it has been possible to operate quickly, by using the movable hospitals, the mortality has been reduced by an enormous extent?
§ Mr. TENNANTI should like notice of that question.