Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/771

 half the group, headed by Dr. Caroline Finley, was suddenly called upon for hospital service within the war zone. The hospital to which they were assigned was evacuated before they could reach it and they were finally placed in Chateau Ognon, a few miles north of Senlis on the road to Compiégne.

"Soon after the first group was sent into the war zone, the French Government asked the remainder of the unit to go to the Department of Landes in the south of France in order to establish there a hospital for refugees. The Germans were still advancing and as the refugees poured into the south the government was trying to build villages of barracks for them. When Dr. Alice Gregory with a group of fifteen women, including a carpenter, plumber, chemist and chauffeur, reached Labouheyre, early in April, a site had still to be found for the hospital and the buildings were still to be built, furnished and equipped. The barracks were erected in due time by the government; the equipment was the gift of the American Red Cross; the planning, directing purchasing and installing were done by our women. Dr. Marie Formad was finally put in charge. Later, at the request of the French Service de Sante, a 300-bed hospital unit for gas cases was organized by the Women's Oversea Hospitals and was started on its way from America to France. This was the first hospital unit exclusively for gas cases and had a personnel solely of women. Its principal group in Lorraine cared for 19,307 cases in three months."

The Oversea Hospitals service was divided and sent from point to point to answer the many demands of war, having charge of hospitals and treating tens of thousands of cases. "With the signing of the Armistice,' Mrs. Brown's report said, "the great problem in France became the care of refugees and repatriates, who were returning at the rate of thousands a day, most of them utterly destitute and in need of medical care, to homes in many cases completely destroyed." The hospital and dispensary service was therefore continued. Dr. Finley and her group were sent to Germany and here met the returned prisoners of war, who were in desperate condition.

"The work of the Oversea Hospitals has been handled with great economy," the report said, "and has cost less than was an-