The life of a hospital at the front is a curious mixture of excitement and dullness. One week cases will be pouring in, the operating theatre will be working day and night, and everyone will have to do their utmost to keep abreast of the rush; next week there will be nothing to do, and everyone will mope about the building, and wonder why they were ever so foolish as to embark on such a futile undertaking. For it is all emergency work, and there is none of the dull routine of the ordinary hospital waiting list, which we are always trying to clear off, but which is in reality the backbone of the hospital's work.

The author of this book, who before the war was an assistant surgeon at West London Hospital, was one of the surgeons in charge of the British Field Hospital for Belgium, which began its work in Antwerp in September 1914 with 150 beds and a staff of eight doctors and twenty nurses. On October 9th, in view of the German occupation, the hospital had to leave the city and successfully did so with over 100 patients being removed in buses. It started up again in Furnes, near La Panne, as the official Field Hospital of the Belgian Army. The location was only a few miles behind the firing line, which made the work quite exciting from the military point of view, and its independence of the British medical organisation brough up many novel problems of supply and maintenance. The author was able to visit other places such as Termonde, Malines, Purvies and Ypres and his descriptions of them so early in the war, supported by photographs, reflect the deep impressions they made on him.