WORK IN THE ARMY 203 
direct fire. In the course of three months, when the Russian armies 
changed their position most frequently, nearly every flying squad 
found itself compelled to cover by road any distance from two hun- 
dred to six hundred miles. Sometimes the roads were crowded with 
retreating troops and refugees, the result being that they could 
move only very slowly, sometimes not more than a few score yards 
an hour.® But even under these unfavorable conditions the zemstvo 
workers did not fail to do everything within their power to render 
useful service. At every halt they tried to set up dressing stations 
and canteens. Thus, we learn from the report of the first flying 
squad of the Eighteenth Zemstvo Detachment that in the course of 
six weeks of uninterrupted movement during June and July, 1915, 
this one squad succeeded in organizing dressing stations and can- 
teens in not less than fifteen different places in the provinces of 
Lublin and Grodno.® 
The detachments received their preparation and training for the 
care of the wounded, which was, of course, their fundamental pur- 
pose, in Moscow. During actual fighting their members would natu- 
rally be exposed to the most strenuous trials, for there was inten- 
sive work to be done day and night in removing the wounded from 
the battlefield, dressing their wounds, feeding, and transporting 
them to the rear. In this connection it should be noted that it was 
often found impossible to postpone urgent operations, as there 
might be cases where the life of a soldier depended upon the prompt 
use of the surgeon’s knife. Operations of one kind or another, in- 
cluding even the most complicated and dangerous, were performed 
at all the zemstvo field detachments. In the reports we find refer- 
ances not only to amputations, but also to trepanning operations 
and partial openings of the abdominal cavity. 
Here 1s a case reported by the Second Detachment: 
Partial openings of the abdominal cavity were made in the case of 
two soldiers who were carried in with their intestines protruding. One 
of the men had his intestines protruding to the extent of about one yard 
and they were soiled with dirt and straw and covered with filthy, wet 
linen rags. . . . According to the statement of the victim himself, he 
had had to crawl in this condition to our trenches immediately after 
® Isvestia (Bulletin), No. 24, pp. 136-140. 
> Ibid., Nos. 22-23, pp. 91-92.