34
THE ARMY MEDICAL SERVICE
1. The Chinese Aray medical Service is not organised
under one controlling administration and does not possess a
standing medical corps. The regimental and divisional medical
units are enlisted and trained by divisional headquarters,
and the chief divisional medical officer is usually appointed
by the divisional commander or army commander, without
reference to the Army Medical Administration,
although formal
approval by the Medical Administration is requested and
usually applied for. This officer is granted a sua of money
to purchase equipment and supplies, the sum being different
in different divisions. Equipment therefore is not standardised,
supplies are usually inadequate, and the personnel indifferently
organised and trained. It is rare to find a properly
qualified doctor as chief medical officer so that the other
officers and the non-commissioned ranks are correspondingly
poorly qualified. Further, the rank and file of the regimental
medical units are often poor in physique for the reason that
men with good physique enlisted in the medical units are
transferred to the fighting ranks. The regimental units can
thus offer little in the way of adequate first-aid treatment,
and because of their lack of organisation and training are
frequently unable to evacuate wounded from the line to
divisional stations, this work being done very largely by
comrades of the wounded themselves.
Attached to divisional headquarters there are two
of the advanced
sanitary companies.
The first take
collecting stations and the second the main dressing stations
some 50 kilometers or more to the rear. What has been said
about the regimental medical units regarding the quality of personnel, lack of proper equipment and supplies and inadequacy
of training applies even more strongly to the two sanitary
companies.