The first American Ambulance

1870 saw the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War and the expansion of "Red Cross" work--- the consequence of the Geneva Convention of 1864.  In Paris, the American Colony, in the person of its most famous member, the illustrious dentist Thomas W. Evans, set up, organized and ran a temporary military hospital under tents----the first "American Ambulance".   The equipment mostly came from Evans' collection of US Sanitary Commission supplies, which had been used during the American Civil War.  As Evans himself was absent, the hospital was under the direction of his righthand man, Dr. Crane, and the medical direction of Dr. John Swinburne.   It proved to be a teaching hospital and its success paved the way for the American Colony's great American Ambulance of 1914-1918.