Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/855

 Popular Science Monthly

��Reaching the Wounded Soldiers, Far Up in the Mountains

��THE recent invention of a Massachusetts mili- tiaman, Paul P. Alex, will be appreciated by the fight- ers in the mountain regions. It is an apparatus for carry- ing a wounded man com- fortably on the back of an animal, and consists of two frameworks mounted upon the sides of a special saddle. One framework is stationary. The other, how- ever, can be undamped and be set upon the ground when a soldier needing attention is found. In opening out this framework, a toggle link is extended above the horse. With this link as a supporting member, the wounded soldier can be hoisted up on to his stretcher. Close up the frame- work once more, clamp it back in place upon the'saddle, and the wounded man can be transported in comparative comfort.

On the journey over the trail to the dressing station, the soldier will be carried flat just as he would be were he in the ordinary ambu- lance. Even the most severely wounded can be moved with no more inconvenience than would be felt in an ambulance.

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Folding Staircase for the Fire- Escape — It Makes Descent Easy

THE ordinary fire-escape has no attraction for the timid man or the fat woman, principally on account of the lower part, which is nothing more than an iron ladder. Such persons will be glad to hear about the folding staircase illustrated in minia- ture on the left. It opens and closes on much the same principle as an accordion. In place of the accordion's ridges, however, are the steps and backs of the staircase which are hori- zontal and vertical re- spectively.

The counterweight and tackle of the staircase make it an easy matter to bring it into position in case of a fire. First a push, then a few pounds pull on the counterweight ropes, and the stair- case drops from the balcony under its own weight. What was formerly a hud- dled mass of flat real staircase, by

��A tiny model of the folding stair- case supporting a champion heavy- weight to show its strength

steel bars becomes a

��means of which it is easy to escape. When not in use the staircase is kept folded up on the first balcony out of sight and out of the reach of burglars.

���The horse ambu- lance carries the wounded down the mountain trails to the dressing station

��Administering the Chloroform to Some Old Sayings

THE Arctic explorer Stefansson — who ought to know — has knocked the foundation out from under several old sayings which had come to be regarded as solid facts. Among other things he says authori- tatively that frost-bites cannot be remedied by rubbing snow on them ; that there is no harm in eating snow when you are thirsty; that Eskimo houses are v/ell ventilated and are not generally ill-smelling; and that in his whole experience north of the Arctic Circle he has never encountered anything so bad, so sudden or so disconcerting as a typical North Dakota blizzard.

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