The formation and early days of the St Andrew's Ambulance Association / by Sir George Thos. Beatson, surgeon to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow.

  • George Beatson
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The formation and early days of the St Andrew's Ambulance Association / by Sir George Thos. Beatson, surgeon to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ^0 Reprinted from the “Glasgow Medical JournalJanuary, 1510.] THE FORMATION AND EARLY DAYS OF THE ST. ANDREW’S AMBULANCE ASSOCIATION.1 By Sir GEORGE THOS. BEATSON, K.C.B. M.D., Surgeon to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow ; and late Chairman of the Council of the Association. At the time I came to Glasgow (August, 1878) ambulance work in civil life was practically non-existent, but in that year there was started in London “ The St. John’s Ambulance Association,” its object being to furnish instruction in the preliminary treatment of the injured in peace and of the wounded in war. Very great success attended this new movement, and within a short time numerous local centres were formed in important towns and districts in all parts of the kingdom. In the winter of 1879-1880 the movement spread to Scotland, and it was then, or shortly afterwards, that St. John established its centres in Edinburgh, Dundee, Falkirk, and other places. Glasgow Was aiever a centre, but detached classes were held in the city, and I was one of the first lecturers. The classes were large and were attended well, and there was considerable enthusiasm. We usually met in one of the small St. Andrew’s Halls, and I often recall those lecturing memories with their amusing incidents and picturesque surroundings, for on the days when the lecture was devoted to practical work, the ladies of the class would bring extempore triangular bandages of varied and brilliant hues, together with several of their offspring, for bandaging purposes. These latter they would bind and secure with a firmness and ingenuity that brought out forcible protestations from the victims of their new-born zeal. All the time I would be 1 Read at a complimentary dinner given to Sir George T. Beatson on his retiral from the Chairmanship of the Council of the St. Andrew’s Ambulance Association after ten years5 service.