Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller

“ The prolonged siege soon produced the usual sufferings among the invading army; and pestilence made even greater ravages among the troops than the arms of the enemy. The brave old Hospitaller, however, only felt the emergency to be a call upon the best exertions of himself and his knights. “Our first duty, gentlemen,” he said to his comrades, “is hospitality, for to that we are bound by our vows; let, therefore, every Hospitaller give his tent to the hospital of the order, and serve, as becomes him, in the infirmary.” ”

“ Therefore the Order of the Hospital, in England of St. John of Jerusalem is, in fact, the legitimate successor—one might say the lineal descendant—of the old Order of Knights Hospitaller, though it is to-day a secular and voluntary society, keeping to the traditions of the past, no longer military nor militant, save as it fights disease and best of all teaches others how to do the same. To follow it further is no longer necessary. Its work is essentially that of the Red Cross. ”

“ Solyman Sultan, by the grace of God King of Kings, Sovereign of Sovereigns, most high Emperor of Byzantium and Trebizond, most powerful King of Persia, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, Supreme Lord of Europe and Asia, Prince of Mecca and Aleppo, Possessor of Jerusalem, and Ruler of the Universal Sea, to Philip Villiers de L’Isle Adam, Grand Master of Rhodes, wishes health.
“We congratulate you on your new dignity, and on your arrival in your states, desiring that you may reign there happily with yet greater glory than your predecessors have done. It only rests with you to share in our good graces. ”

“ And all Men employed about the Hospital ought to be reviewed once a Week by the Military Inspector, and likewise whenever a Party of Convalescents is going to join the Army, or their Regiments; that no Man may be allowed to remain with the Hospital, after he is fit to do Duty in his Regiment. ”

“ The ordinary business and the government of the fraternity in secular matters were conducted by the Master with the assistance of his particular chapter of the Latin kingdom, which was composed of such of the Grand Priors and chief dignitaries of the Temple as happened to be present in the East, and such of the knights as were deemed the wisest and most fit to give counsel. ”

“ The Serjeant of the Guard, attended by the Ward Master, ought, every Morning, to go round the Wards to call a Roll, and see that every Man is in his Ward; and to do the same at Night before the Hospital Doors are shut, and at this Time to order every Person out of the Hospital who does not belong to it. ”

“ The flash of the fire-arms and the gleaming torch-light fell upon his face, and a shout of triumph rose from the Christian soldiers as they recognised the person of their grand master, who, with a few of his chosen knights, seemed to multiply himself, says the French historian, so as to be at every post of danger. Fontanus, an eye-witness, declares that at his very appearance, without the striking of a blow, the Turks drew back in fear while turning to his followers, he exclaimed: “Come, comrades, drive back these fellows from the breach; we must not fear men who are beaten every day.” ”

“ Nicholas, the key of Rhodes; twenty Provençal knights are there, claiming, as Provence ever would, the post of danger and of glory. The rest of the French you may distinguish drawn up with admirable regularity from the tower of France to the Ambrosian gate; and thence to the gate of St. George stand the Germans—you may tell them by the imperial standard. Spain and England stand together; the banner of the Turcopolier, Sir John Buck, waves out over their ranks; only nineteen English are there, but every man a hero, and ready for a hero’s death. The grand master will head them himself ”

“ In the Middle Ages there was no medical organization with armies, nor were there even any surgeons. The sick and wounded were left to shift for themselves, and were tended, if at all, by private persons out of charity, or in monasteries, for the monks alone possessed any knowledge of surgery and medicine in those days. ”

“ The assault is all along the front; the grand master stands at the breach, and around him his gallant knights, making a rampart with their bodies. The ladders are thrown down, only to be raised again by the determined foe; massive stones and boiling oil and streams of flaming fire are launched upon them,—still they press on; and those who are below in the boats and triremes discharge volley after volley of musketry and showers of arrows from their cross-bows at the knights, or endeavour with grappling-irons, which they throw upon the ramparts, to drag them down and stab them as they fall. ”

“ The constant resort of pilgrims to the Holy Land not only increased the wealth of the Hospitallers, but spread their fame to other countries. Princes and kings conferred lands and benefices upon them, and the order began to throw out ramifications into Europe, where hospitals, under the same rule, were erected, and may be considered as the first commanderies of the institution. ”

“ Constantinople had fallen; Santa Sophia had become, what it still remains, a Turkish mosque; the foul creed of Mahomet had usurped the temple of the Most High; and the infidel was enthroned for centuries in the metropolis of the once Christian empire of the East. And Rhodes knew well enough that at her the next blow was to be directed. Sir John de Lastic, the reigning grand master, hastened to prepare for the worst, and summoned all his knights throughout Europe to assemble for the defence. “We command you,” he says, “to come hither instantly, where your presence is urgently required. ”

“ The hospitals, of course, must be just as much under the Inspector-General as the arrangements of the field are under the Commander-in-Chief, and consequently, any peculiarity of success in the recovery of the sick and wounded is as much to the appropriate praise of the former, as the wise array of a battle or a siege is to the distinct honour of the latter. ”

“ Another consideration was, that each surgeon liked to have his field of duty to himself, and found it an advantage to have a large variety of ailments to treat, to the constant improvement of his experience. They said that doctors and patients and nurses all liked the Regimental Hospital best, and this was clear proof that it was the best. ”

“ Emissaries from the Turkish camp appeared again and again before the walls; the grand master ordered them to be fired upon; the citizens, weary of the contest, threatened to treat for terms on their own account; still he was inflexible. But he was unsupported: not but that his knights were as ready as himself to die, sword in hand fighting against the infidels; but they could not resist the crowd of weeping citizens who stood about the council-door begging them to save their wives and children by a timely compliance with honourable terms ”

“ HEALTH IN THE HOSPITAL. In preparing to do the duty of society towards the wounded or sick soldier, the first consideration is, What is a Military Hospital? No two nations seem to have answered this question in the same way; yet it is a point of the first importance to them all.
When England went to war last time, after a peace of forty years, the only idea in the minds of her military surgeons was of Regimental Hospitals. There was to be a place provided as an infirmary for a certain number of soldiers; a certain number of orderlies were to be appointed as nurses ”

“ Not only our fighting-men—soldiers of high degree and low degree alike—but non-combatants, chaplains, army scripture readers, war correspondents, doctors, and army nurses, it remorselessly claimed and victimised. In such a campaign the fighting line is not the chief point of peril, nor the fighting soldiers the only sufferers. Hospital work has its heroes, though not its trumpeters, and many a man of the Royal Army Medical Corps has as faithfully won his medal as any that handled rifle. ”

“ As the Service often makes it necessary at Military Hospitals, where the Number of Sick is great, to employ the convalescent Soldiers [163] [406] as orderly Men and Servants about Hospitals, all Men thus employed ought to have a special Leave from the Military Inspector for so doing; and no Man should be employed in any Capacity as a Servant about an Hospital, who at that Time is on the Books as a Patient. ”

“ The Grand Master then sent into the church for the crucifix, and two serving brothers, with naked swords in their hands, stationed themselves on either side of the doorway. As soon as the crucifix made its appearance, the Grand Master, pointing to the figure of our Saviour nailed thereon, asked the deponent whose image it was, and he answered, “The image of Jesus Christ, who suffered on the cross for the redemption of mankind;” ”

“ As for the medical department, there is now a training provided for such soldiers as wish to qualify themselves for hospital duty. Formerly, the hospital was served by such men as the military officers thought fit to spare for the purpose; and they naturally did not send the best. These men knew nothing of either cleaning wards or nursing patients. Their awkwardness in sweeping and scouring and making beds was extreme; and they were helpless in case of anything being wanted to a blister or a sore. ”

“ In the early part of the eighteenth century they joined to their staff medical men from the ranks of the laity; compelled to this step by an edict from the Parliament of Paris which ordered them to admit, without salary, a surgeon-apprentice to help them in dressing wounds, and a master-surgeon to share their labours generally. Throughout the eighteenth century they found themselves constantly exposed to attacks from the members of the various medical and surgical guilds, who claimed the sole right of attending the sick and wounded. ”

“ Brother Robert le Scott, knight, a brother of twenty-six years’ standing, had been received at the Pilgrim’s Castle, the famous fortress of the Knights Templars in Palestine, by the Grand Master, Brother William de Beaujeu, the hero who died so gloriously at the head of his knights at the last siege and storming of Acre. ”

“ I have spoken of the bravery of the soldier as he lies under the surgeon's knife; but let us not forget the signal heroism of the surgeons themselves, and their staffs. They have given proof of a super-human courage and self-forgetfulness, and surgeons and doctors, stretcher-bearers and nurses, have frequently figured in the Army Orders for their absolute devotion to duty. In many cases the enemy granted no truce for the recovery of the wounded, and it was necessary to seek them under a hail of bullets and shell fire. ”

“ By day and night he never spared himself in the most watchful superintendence of all departments of the hospital; no details were too minute for his care, no plan too generous which could tend to the comfort of the suffering. Absolute system and punctuality were expected to be observed by all who came under his military rule. The reveille bugle broke the silence of early dawn. Its clear notes, repeated at intervals during the day, announced to the surgeons the time for visits and reports, and to the men on duty—such as the guards, police, nurses, and cooks—the time for their meals. ”

“ The personnel of the hospital consists of about twenty English nurses, the matron, Miss Power, having marched through the snow in the retreat of the Servian army, with which she worked in 1915. There are sixty English drivers and mechanics, one of [577] whom has been severely wounded and another slightly. The King of Italy has made personal presentation of the Silver Medal for Military Valour to the commandant as a testimony to the services of the whole unit under fire during its year and a half of service on the Italian front. ”

“ Ninety per cent of the patients admitted to the Army and Navy Hospital are either cured or relieved. Taking into consideration the large number of old civil war veterans treated at the hospital, whose ailments have become chronic, this is a very remarkable showing. ”

“ In 1855 he was appointed to the charge of Plymouth Hospital, in 1861 to Greenwich Hospital, and was placed on the retired list in 1865, receiving the honour of knighthood. In 1859 he was named honorary physician to the queen, when the distinction was first instituted. ”

“ At the time we were there six hundred soldiers were under treatment. Deaths run about two per cent.
This was my first visit to an army hospital and the impression will never be forgotten. There were men in all different stages of wounds, some of them convalescent; others on the dividing line; with others the treatment was just starting. This American Ambulance is considered the best managed hospital in all France. General Frank H. Mason, who had been consul general and in the consular service more than thirty years, had charge of it up to the time of his death. ”

“ If every Officer on convalescent Duty conform to these Directions, no Man can ever be detained without his Knowledge in or about Hospitals, as he must always know where every Man is, in what State of Health, and how he is employed; and may at any Time be able to make a Return to the Brigade or Regiment for which he is employed, of every Man who is admitted, discharged, or dies in the Hospital. ”

“ Before the hospital he saw paraded some three hundred men. The front rank lay mostly on the gravel, for they were unable to stand, either by debility or amputation; the rear rank was propped against the wall, on crutches or staves. All wore the light blue hospital gown, trousers, and cap; but many an empty sleeve and useless trouser-leg were there.
Every man of them has been face to face and foot to foot with death, and yet withal their hearts are strongly stirred within them by their Queen's approach. Their hair is long, and in elf-locks ”