“One of the most cruel features in future battles will be the contrast between the great improvement in medical service, and the increasing difficulty, despite the Red Cross, of giving aid to the wounded.... His conclusion [the conclusions of Dr. Bardeleben, who was Surgeon-General of the Prussian Army during the Franco-Prussian War] was that the whole system of carrying away the wounded on litters during the battle must be abandoned as altogether impracticable. This I believe has proved to be generally true. And now battles last a week or ten days! Something, of course, can be done under cover of the night—though the custom of fighting at night prevails more and more.... It is probable that, in spite of all improvements in medicine and ambulance, the sufferings of the wounded in the great battles in Manchuria and at the siege of Port Arthur have been as great as, if not greater than, those of any war of recent times.” _Here it is to be emphasized by the young man who is thinking of joining the army that in spite of the loud outcry against the poor fellows of our army in the Cuban war in the way of criminally inefficient medical service, our great and extremely patriotic statesmen who love the common soldiers so dearly have in the twelve years since the war made no adequate preparation to prevent another such outrage._ Let the following stand as evidence of this statement:[100] “_Under the existing organization it would be impossible to prevent a breakdown of the Medical Department_ in case of a war involving the mobilization of the volunteer forces, nor would it be possible to spare the necessary Regular medical officers to apply in those voluntary forces the modern sanitary measures so vital to the health and efficiency of the troops, without which unnecessary suffering is produced and disaster is invited.” Thus also the New York _Times_:[101] “The admission rate into the hospitals for the American Army is [now in the time of peace] 1,250 per 1,000 each year. The _British Annual_ notes that this enormous rate is well above that for the French, German and Austrian armies, while the hospital lists for the British Army show a rate of but 324 per thousand.”