Читать книгу The Little Book of Medical Breakthroughs - Dr. Naomi Craft - Страница 19

The idea of an ambulance that brings aid to an injured or sick patient originated on 11th-century battlefields.

The ambulance service has developed extensively so that now highly trained ambulance staff can provide life-saving treatment within minutes and transport a patient by air, road, sea or train to the nearest hospital.

The first-known first aiders were the Knights of St John. They treated soldiers on the battlefield during the Crusades in the 11th century. The practice of moving injured soldiers off the battlefield developed in the 15th century, when the Spanish army used ambulancarias, or military hospitals, for the first time.

The first official ambulances were created by Baron Dominique Larrey (1766–1842), the Surgeon-in-Chief of the French Grand Army, and used by Napoleon’s (1769–1821) army in 1793. Larrey’s ambulances volantes were horse-drawn wagons used to transport trained attendants to give first aid on the battlefield and then carry them back with the injured soldiers to the field hospitals.

The first ambulance based at a civilian hospital was in 1865 at Commercial Hospital, Cincinnati in the United States. This was soon followed by others, notably the New York service provided out of Bellevue Hospital. These hospital ambulances were left harnessed to the horses so that they could move quickly, and carried medical supplies.

The first motor-powered ambulance (1899) followed the introduction of the motorcar. Since then, with research into the value of early treatment, ambulances have become further specialized, with the introduction of air ambulances and cardiac ambulances with crew, trained to administer life-saving drugs at the scene.