Dominique-Jean Larrey, portrait by Marie-Guillemine BenoistMarie-Guillemine Benoist, 1804. Public domain. Wikimedia Commons. Image source
Dominique-Jean Larrey builds the 'flying ambulance'
1792 to 1815 · Dominique-Jean Larrey (1766 to 1842)
Dominique-Jean Larrey was a French army surgeon during the wars of the 1790s and the Napoleonic era. At the time, wounded soldiers often lay on the battlefield until the fighting ended, sometimes for a day or more, before anyone carried them to a hospital far behind the lines.
Larrey thought that was far too slow. In the early 1790s he designed light, horse-drawn carriages with springs that could move quickly to the wounded. He called them ambulances volantes, or flying ambulances. Teams with each carriage gave first care on the spot and then moved patients to field hospitals.
He also sorted the wounded by how badly they were hurt and how urgently they needed care, not by their rank. This idea is an early form of what we now call triage.
Larrey served in many campaigns and became one of the most respected surgeons of his time. Napoleon praised him as one of the most virtuous men he had known.
Rapid response, care at the scene and triage by need are still at the heart of paramedic practice today.
Clara Barton in 1904James E. Purdy, 1904. Public domain. Wikimedia Commons. Image source
Clara Barton brings supplies to the front lines
1861 to 1904 · Clara Barton (1821 to 1912)
Clara Barton was working as a clerk in Washington when the American Civil War began in 1861. She saw that wounded soldiers were short of bandages, food and basic supplies.
Barton began collecting supplies and soon brought them right to the battlefields herself, often arriving while fighting was still going on. She cleaned wounds, gave water and food, and comforted the dying. Soldiers called her the Angel of the Battlefield.
After the war she ran an office that helped families find out what had happened to thousands of missing soldiers.
Barton later learned about the International Red Cross while in Europe. She returned home and, in 1881, founded the American Red Cross. She led it for more than 20 years, and it began to respond to floods, fires and other disasters, not only war.
Her focus on getting help to people where the emergency is happening, and organizing disaster response, is part of the background of modern emergency medical services.
