The sub-district hospitals were used a great deal for the care of men who were sick only for a day or two. It was believed that there would be a certain amount of injury done in transporting the wounded by train. Some of the stations were twenty-five miles from either Ancon or Colon, but at the same time it was thought that the better care, skill and attention that the patient could get in the large and well-equipped hospitals, such as Ancon and Colon, would a great deal more than counterbalance the injury done by the long railway haul. For the purpose of transporting the sick and wounded from the various district hospitals to the base hospitals, hospital cars were run over the road morning and evening, in both directions. The hospital cars were of local manufacture, gotten up by Dr. Carter, the then director of hospitals. He took the ordinary baggage car, rigged up iron frames over which canvas was stretched, and these frames were secured to the walls with hinges, so that when not in use they could be folded down on the side of the car, out of the way. There were sixteen of these beds in each car. The car was also arranged so that when the beds were not left down there was a row of seats available all around the car. Ordinarily, in transportation there would be five or six stretcher cases occupying beds in the car, but the large majority of the cases would be sitting up. Each car was provided with a toilet, a small supply of medicines and surgical dressings, and two small closets in which such things were stored. The car was manned by a trained white male nurse and a negro assistant. The car was screened. The trains at Ancon and Colon were met by the necessary number of ambulances, and the patient in this way was carried to the hospital. Cases of pressing emergency were brought on special trains. The district physician could generally get a special train if he certified that there was necessity for it. This method of transportation for the sick proved eminently satisfactory, and during our ten years of construction work on the Isthmus, it fulfilled every need. We transported a great many thousand patients in this way without a mishap of any kind due to the method of transportation. The country along the Canal route was exceedingly rugged, and many of the district hospitals, for the first few years, were inaccessible to wheeled vehicles. So the patients who could not walk had to be carried to the hospital car on stretchers. But long before the period of construction was half through roads had been built to all these district hospitals. In charge of the medical matters in each of our twenty districts was a district physician. This physician had charge of the district hospital, and looked after the patients there. It was also his duty to look after the families of employees. No charge was made for the medical care of an employee, or for medicine furnished him, or for surgical operations performed upon him.