Ambulance - used, first, body, Father of the Modern Ambulance, Air and Ground Ambulances
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Ambulance
The origin of the ambulance was tied to the needs of war. Battlefields       were often miles from medical tents. An injured soldier could die on his       to treatment         if he had to be carried by men on foot. Although we may think of       ambulances in terms of automobiles, earlier forms of ambulances were used       as long ago as the middle ages, when men wounded in battle during the       Crusades (a series of eight extended battles fought by European noblemen       from 1095-1291 to protect the Christian Byzantine empire from Muslim       Turks) were transported by horse-drawn wagons to centralized treatment       centers.
Father of the Modern Ambulance
The modern ambulance—at least the horse-driven version—was       cre-ated by Frenchman Dominique-Jean Larrey (1766-1842) in 1792. Larrey, Napoleon's private surgeon, wanted to       improve battlefield treatment of wounded soldiers. He designed a       horse-drawn "flying ambulance" to carry surgeons and medical       supplies onto the field of battle during the Rhine campaign of 1792.
For the Italian campaign of 1794, Larrey used light ambulance carriages       with stretchers to carry the wounded. In Egypt in 1799, local camels       powered Larrey's ambulances. With fellow surgeon Pierre Percy       (1754-1825), Larrey formed a battalion of ambulance soldiers, including       stretcher bearers and surgeons. Larrey's ambulances and the swift       medical attention they brought significantly boosted the morale of       Napoleon's troops.
Ambulance service was expanded from the military to the civilian world in       1869 by Bellevue Hospital in New York City. The Larrey "flying       ambulance" remained standard until the first motorized ambulances       appeared around the turn of the century. These motorized vehicles were       pioneered by the Panhard-Levassor partnership of France.
A modern ambulance speeds off in response to an emergency call.
Air and Ground Ambulances
The first airborne ambulances were hot-air balloons used to evacuate       wounded personnel from Paris during a Prussian siege in 1870. Heli-copters       began to transport wounded soldiers during World War II (1939-1945) and       became vital evacuation vehicles in the Korean (1950-1953) and Vietnam       (1965-1973) wars. Today, air ambulances—both fixed-wing and       helicopters—are increasingly used for quick transportation of       patients, particularly in busy cities, but also in rural areas where       medical care may be a great distance from the scene of an accident.
Until the mid-1960s, ambulances were mostly modified hearses, since these       vehicles could transport patients in a supine (lying down on one's       back) position. Since hearses were designed to carry corpses instead of       living patients needing care, they had little room for supplies or       attendants, let alone treatment en route to the hospital. A National       Academy of Science/National Research Council report in 1966 focused       attention on the need for both professional training of emergency medical       technicians (EMTs) and improvements in ambulance design. This report       resulted in today's modern van ambulance, with it's working       space and sophisticated supplies and equipment. The van ambulance is       operated by medical para-professionals, so that the ambulance is no longer       simply a transportation vehicle—it is also a moving treatment       center.
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