In the _Italian war of 1859_ both the French and the Austrians made use of the railways for the withdrawal of their sick and wounded, and, in his "Souvenir de Solferino," Jean Henri Dumant, the "Father" of the Red Cross Movement, speaks of the transportation of wounded from Brescia to Milan by train to the extent of about 1,000 a night. No arrangements for their comfort on the journey had been made in advance, and the changes in the military situation were so rapid, when hostilities broke out, that no special facilities could be provided then. All that was done was to lay down straw on the floor of the goods or cattle trucks used for the conveyance of some of the more serious cases. The remainder travelled in ordinary third-class carriages, and their sufferings on the journey, before they reached the long and narrow sheds put up along the railway lines at Milan or elsewhere to serve as temporary hospitals, must often have been very great. They may, nevertheless, have escaped the fate of those who died, not from their wounds, but from the fevers quickly generated in the overcrowded hospitals at the front, where there was, besides, a general deficiency of ambulance requirements of all kinds. The good resulting from the removal by train is, indeed, said to have been "immense." These experiences in the campaign of 1859 led to a recommendation being made in the following year by a _German_ medical authority, Dr. E. Gurlt,[17] that railway vehicles should be specially prepared for the conveyance of the sick and wounded in time of war. The plan which he himself suggested for adoption was the placing of the sufferers in hammocks suspended from hooks driven into the roof of the goods van or carriage employed, mattresses being first put on the hammocks, when necessary. By this means, he suggested, the sufferers would travel much more comfortably than when seated in the ordinary passenger carriages, or when lying on straw in the goods wagons or cattle trucks. Dr. Gurlt's pamphlet served the good purpose of drawing much attention to the subject, and his proposals were duly subjected to the test of experiment. They failed, however, on two grounds,--(1) because the roofs of the goods vans, designed for shelter only, were not sufficiently strong to bear the weight of a number of men carried in the way suggested; and (2) because the motion of the train caused the hammocks to come into frequent contact with the sides of the wagon, to the serious discomfort of the occupants.