The earliest known record of an ambulance vehicle dates back to around 400AD, when the Anglo-Saxons constructed a cart fitted with a hammock for transporting the sick or injured. Later, the Normans used a litter suspended between two horses. Transporting patients to a dedicated place for treatment was a practice which came from the Crusades of the Knights of the Order of St John in the eleventh century and later spread, with a horse-drawn ambulance being invented in France in 1797.
When automobiles were being developed in the late nineteenth century, the transportation of patients was handled by groups like the police. Even after the advent of automobile ambulances in 1904, methods of transporting the wounded or sick were not always easy. For example, transporting a patient on a stretcher powered by four people on bicycles was invented in the 1890s and commonly practised during the First World War, especially in places that could not be reached by car or horse-drawn carriage. Neither of these methods of transportation is used today. Horse-drawn ambulances were commonly used together with automobile ambulances till the 1920s, and unfortunately, there is very little information on when a bicycle litter stopped being used.
There are many cases where the patient first needs to be transported to an ambulance. For example, a “flying fox” stretcher is still used today to rescue patients from buildings or mountains and cliffs. When using the flying fox, the patient must be firmly strapped to the stretcher, and the rescuers then elevate or lower the patient using high-strength ropes and pulleys. The flying fox is still commonly used, just with the use of newer materials, despite the ability to transport patients using more modern means.
We do not have much information about whether everything went as planned in the cases captured in the photographs within this theme. Some of them depict situations in which the method of transportation was only tested. In many cases, however, you can't rely on tried-and-true methods and need to come up with something new.
This theme was researched and written by Natálie Trtíková as part of her University of Leicester Museum Studies placement with the Museum in summer 2026.
When automobiles were being developed in the late nineteenth century, the transportation of patients was handled by groups like the police. Even after the advent of automobile ambulances in 1904, methods of transporting the wounded or sick were not always easy. For example, transporting a patient on a stretcher powered by four people on bicycles was invented in the 1890s and commonly practised during the First World War, especially in places that could not be reached by car or horse-drawn carriage. Neither of these methods of transportation is used today. Horse-drawn ambulances were commonly used together with automobile ambulances till the 1920s, and unfortunately, there is very little information on when a bicycle litter stopped being used.
There are many cases where the patient first needs to be transported to an ambulance. For example, a “flying fox” stretcher is still used today to rescue patients from buildings or mountains and cliffs. When using the flying fox, the patient must be firmly strapped to the stretcher, and the rescuers then elevate or lower the patient using high-strength ropes and pulleys. The flying fox is still commonly used, just with the use of newer materials, despite the ability to transport patients using more modern means.
We do not have much information about whether everything went as planned in the cases captured in the photographs within this theme. Some of them depict situations in which the method of transportation was only tested. In many cases, however, you can't rely on tried-and-true methods and need to come up with something new.
This theme was researched and written by Natálie Trtíková as part of her University of Leicester Museum Studies placement with the Museum in summer 2026.