committee meeting of the Scottish Federation of Women's Suffrage
Societies. Once the idea was given expression to, nothing was able to
stop its growth. A special Scottish Women's Hospital committee was
formed out of members of the Federation and Dr. Inglis's personal
friends. Meetings were organized all over the country; an appeal for
funds was sent broadcast over Scotland; money began to flow in; the
scheme was taken up by the whole body of the N.U.W.S.S.[12] Mrs. Fawcett
wrote approvingly. The Scottish Women's Hospitals Committee at their
headquarters in Edinburgh divided up into subcommittees: equipment,
uniforms, cars, personnel, and so on. Offers for service came in every
day, until soon over 400 names were waiting the choice of the personnel
committee. The headquarters offices in 2, St. Andrew Square became a
busy hive. Enthusiasm was written on the face of every worker. By the
end of November the first fully equipped Unit, under Miss Ivens of
Liverpool was on its way to the old Abbey of Royaumont in France. Dr.
Alice Hutchison with ten nurses was in Calais working under the Belgian
surgeon, Dr. de Page. A second Unit as well equipped as the first was
almost ready to start for Serbia. It sailed in the beginning of January,
under Dr. Eleanor Soltau, Dr. Inglis herself following in the April of
1915.

But even with all this dispatch, the S.W.H. were not the first Women's
Hospital in the field. As early as September, 1914, Dr. Flora Murray and
Dr. Louisa Garrett Anderson had taken a Unit, staffed entirely by women,
to Paris, where they did excellent work.

Until Dr. Inglis's departure for Serbia, her whole time and strength and
boundless energy had been thrown into the building up of the
organization of the Scottish Women's Hospitals. She addressed countless
meetings all over the Kingdom, making the scheme known and appealing for
money, and at the same time her insight and enthusiasm never ceased to
be the mainspring of the activity at the office in Edinburgh, where the
heart of the Scottish Women's Hospitals was to be found. Miss Mair
describes Dr. Inglis during these months thus:

"A certain stir of feeling might be perceptible in the busy hive at the
office of organization when a specially energetic visit of the Chief had
been paid. Had the impossible been accomplished? If not, why? Who had
failed in performance? Take the task from her; give it to another. No
excuses in war-time, no weakness to be tolerated--onw