In effect, there are four classes of trains by which, under the conditions of to-day, the sick and wounded may be despatched from the seat of war:--(1) Permanent hospital trains, specially constructed for the purpose; (2) temporary hospital trains, made up either entirely of converted ordinary vehicles or partly of converted and partly of specially-constructed rolling stock, their use for this purpose continuing for the duration of the war; (3) ambulance trains improvised at railhead out of rolling stock bringing troops, supplies and stores to the front, the internal fittings for "lying-down" cases being of such a kind that they can be readily fixed or dismantled; and (4) ordinary passenger carriages for slightly wounded or convalescents. The advantages conferred on armies from a strategical point of view, under all these improved conditions, are no less beyond dispute than the benefits conferred on the individual soldiers, and if railways had done no more in regard to the conduct of warfare than ensure these dual results, they would still have rendered a service of incalculable value. While, also, their provision of an efficient ambulance transport system, with its speedy removal of non-effectives, has served the purposes of war, it has, in addition, by its regard for the sick and wounded themselves, further served to relieve warfare of some, at least, of its horrors. FOOTNOTES: [16] A saying attributed to Napoleon is that he preferred a dead soldier to a wounded one. [17] "Ueber den Transport Schwerverwundeter und Kranker im Kriege, nebst Vorschlägen über die Benutzung der Eisenbahnen dabei." 33 pp. Berlin, 1860. [18] "Les Institutions Sanitaires pendant le Conflit Austro-Prussien-Italien." Par Thomas W. Evans. Paris, 1867. [19] For "A short consideration and comparison of the regulations for the transport of sick and wounded by rail, as laid down in four of the leading Continental armies (the German, French, Austrian and Italian)," see a paper on "Continental Regulations for the Transport of Sick and Wounded by Rail," by Surg.-Capt. C. H. Melville, A.M.S., _Royal United Service Institution Journal_, vol. 42 (1898), pp. 560-594. [20] In an article on "Military Hospital Trains; their Origin and Progress," in _The Railway Gazette_ of December 4, 1914, it is said: "The comparatively small loss of the Germans by death from wounds in 1870 was due solely to the fact that they entered upon the war with what were then considered wonderfully elaborate arrangements for removing the wounded.... The trains were composed partly of first-class carriages, for the less badly wounded, and partly of covered goods wagons.... In these covered vans were placed beds formed of boards laid on springs. Each van would hold four or five men, and a sister rode in the van." One would not, however, consider to-day that there was anything wonderfully elaborate in an arrangement under which no more than four or five sufferers were accommodated in each goods van.