"My beloved poilus."; These home letters from an American girl caring for the wounded in France at an army ambulance - Livres de poche

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: We do not see any of the horrors of the war here. If it were not for the tales that come to us from outside, and for the poor broken men who come back, we would not know it was going on. There are very enthusiastic accounts of the Canadians in all the English papers. Paris, about February 15, 1915. Back safely in Paris after taking my patient to New York and a short visit home, which now seems like a dream. I have been spending a lot of time at the American Ambulance this week, but have not gone out to stay as yet, as I still have to see some other small hospitals and had to go to the Clearing House to make arrangements for sending supplies, which I brought from home and New York, to different places. I have seen quite a number of operations, and as X-ray pictures are taken of all the cases there is no time wastedin hunting for a bullet; they get the bullet out in about two minutes. They are using Dr. Criles' anaesthetic ? nitrous oxide gas and oxygen ? it has no bad effects whatever. The patients come out of it at once as soon as the mask is taken off, and there is no nausea or illness at all; and most of them go off laughing, for they cannot believe that it is all over, ? they feel so well; but oh, mother, it is awful to see the sad things that have happened. In some cases there are only pieces of men left. One young chap, twenty-one years old, has lost both legs. At first he did not want to live, but now he is beginning to take an interest in things and is being fitted for wooden legs. The dental department has done wonderful work. They build up the frame work of the face and jaws and then the surgeons finish the work by making new noses and lips and eyelids.I thought I had seen a good many wonderful things, but I did not believe it possible to make any thing hum...