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16
(3.) The Ambulance Services of Foreign Towns.—Having regard more especially to the arrangements
made for the removal to hospital of persons suffering from accidents or sudden illness
in the street.
In the year 1890 the Foreign Office addressed a circular letter to Her Majesty's representatives
at the chief foreign towns in Europe and in the United States requesting that information be forwarded
as to the means adopted for "the ambulance transport of civilian sick and injured from their homes
or the place of injury to the hospitals, or from the place of injury to their own homes."
The information which was obtained was presented to Parliament in the same year, and the
following account as to the arrangements which existed at that time has been obtained from this
parliamentary paper. Reference will only be made to those towns at which a horse ambulance
emergency service had been established, and the account of which appears to be useful in connection
with the purpose of this report—
New York City.
The ambulance service of this city is controlled by three separate departments, namely, the
Police, the Health, and the Commissioners of Public Charities and Corrections.
The ambulance service is conducted by the respective departments as follows—
Police department.—As to persons taken ill or injured in the public places or streets, the
policeman on post reports the matter at once to the nearest station-house by telephone, telegraph,
or other expeditious way, and am ambulance-call is sent at once from thence to the nearest hospital
provided with ambulances. Whether the injured or sick person is taken to his home or to
hospital depends upon his condition. If such person desires to be taken to his home, and the
surgeon sees no objection, this is done. A competent surgeon accompanies each ambulance, and
his examination of the sick or injured person determines the first disposition of the case.
In addition to the street cases, there are many others in which ambulances are called to the
station-houses, in order to secure the most expeditious surgical opinion and treatment. Of these,
about one-half are taken to the hospitals, but the remainder, consisting of cases of delirium
tremens, contagious diseases, profound insensibility from intoxication, insanity, parturient
women, &c., which the general hospitals—those not entirely sustained by the City Government
—decline to receive, are handed over to the Commissioners of Charities and Corrections, and
are sent by them to institutions or asylums on islands adjacent to New York, specially under the
Commissioners' control.

* Under Department of Charities and Corrections.
In addition to these, ambulances are kept at the head-quarters of the Charities and
Corrections and Health Departments namely—
Charities and Corrections, 3.
Health Department, 3, and 2 coupes.
Department of Public Charities and Corrections.—As to the means adopted by this department
for ambulance transportation of the sick and injured, calls are received in the following manner—
1. Through the Police Department, by the officer on whose post the accident occurs reporting
the case at the station-house. It is then transmitted by telephone to this Department through
the Police Central office.
2. By an officer of the Fire Department sending a signal (twenty continuous taps) on the fire
telegraph. This is done only in extreme cases, as when an accident occurs at a fire requiring a
number of ambulances, when ambulances from all available sources are signalled for.
3. By relatives or friends making application to the Commissioners or the Warden of the
hospitals under the control of the Commissioners.
4. On a physician's certificate that the patient, unable to pay for the same, requires hospital
treatment.
Each ambulance is supplied with surgical appliances, medicines, &c., and a surgeon goes with
each. On the arrival of the ambulance at the place where the accident occurs the patient's
wounds are dressed,and, should he desire to go home, if the surgeon is of opinion that he may
safely do so, he is taken there, provided he lives within the city limits.
Calls are received at all hours of the day or night, and the surgeons, drivers, and ambulances
we ready for every emergency.
Health Department.—The ambulances of this Department (three in number and two coupes)
are used only for the transportation of persons, sick with contagious diseases, from private dwellings,
tenement houses, hospitals, and public institutions, to the hospitals of this department for their
reception and treatment.
Chicago.
The system adopted in the city of Chicago for the ambulance transport of civilian sick and
injured is that of patrol waggons under the charge of the police attached to nearly all the stations
in the different police precincts. These are kept always ready, day and night, to answer a call