These details as to what was accomplished in the American Civil War are the more deserving of record because they show that the evolution of the "hospital on wheels," from the initial conditions of a bedding of straw on the floor of a railway goods wagon, was really carried out, step by step, in all its essential details, in the United States. The hospital train was thus _not_ an English invention, as is widely assumed to be the case; though much was to be done here to improve its construction, equipment and organisation. Whilst America had been gaining all this very practical experience, the _Danish War of 1864_ had given Prussia the opportunity of testing the system approved by her in 1861 for the conveyance of the less severely wounded in ordinary passenger carriages and of the seriously wounded on sacks of straw laid on the floor of goods wagons. The results were found so unsatisfactory that on the conclusion of hostilities a fresh series of investigations and experiments was begun, and matters were still at this stage when war broke out between Prussia and Austria. The conditions in regard to the care of the sick and wounded in the _campaign of 1866_ were deplorably defective. Not only, according to Dr. T. W. Evans[18]--an American medical man, settled in Paris, who visited the battle-field and assisted in the work of relief--was there no advance on what had been done in the United States, but the American example was in no way followed, the combatants having made no attempt whatever to profit from her experience. After the battle of Sadowa, thousands of wounded were left on the battle-field, and many remained there three days and three nights before they could be removed in the carts and wagons which were alone available for the purpose. Within five days every village in a radius of four leagues was crowded with wounded. Those taken to Dresden and Prague in ordinary passenger carriages or goods vans were detained for days on the journey owing to the congestion of traffic on the lines. Some of them, also, were in the trains for two days before their wounds were dressed. Then the use of straw, depended on by the Austrians, was found to be unsatisfactory. It failed to afford the sufferers a sufficient protection against the jolting of the wagons, especially when they worked through it to the bare boards; and even then there was not always sufficient straw available to meet requirements. Altogether, it is declared, the wounded suffered "unheard-of tortures."