2-914-077 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

French Ambulances, before Sebastopol, 1854. Crimean War: '...nearly all English accounts from the Crimea represent the French medical arrangements as much superior to those of our army. In the Service des Ambulances Francaises, for example, we are told that the plan adopted by the French is much simpler and more commodious than that of the English army; and certainly, as regards simplicity, the French Ambulances could not easily be surpassed. They are of two sorts...Those for invalids who are seriously ill, or severely wounded, are in the form of a cradle, covered with a white canopy. Two of these are slung across the mule's back, one on each side, with the patients stretched at full length in them. The other sort have two chairs placed so that two invalids can sit comfortably in them'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.