Medicine: Ready for War

In St. Paul three weeks ago when the Inter-State Postgraduate Medical Association met, in Manhattan fortnight ago when the New York Academy of Medicine began a series of discussions of injuries, in Detroit last week when the Association of Military Surgeons assembled—one authority or another dinned into the ears of U. S. doctors the imminence of war and described some of the medical problems to be met.

Said Brigadier General Frank Thomas Hines, administrator of Veterans’ Affairs: “The peace of the world is in perilous plight. . . . The plans which have been developed [in this country] are for the mobilization of industry, the technological sciences, and agriculture. . . . The present complement of medical and dental officers will have to be increased from around 1,216 regulars and 18,778 reservists to a corps consisting of approximately 40,000 medical and dental officers. . . .”

Said Surgeon General Perceval Sherer Rossiter of the Navy, who was elected president of the Association of Military Surgeons: “The Navy will mobilize 5,000 doctors.”

Said Surgeon General Charles Ransom Reynolds of the Army: “I am telling you that you must be ready with a plan for regimentation.”

Answered President Charles Gordon Heyd of the American Medical Association, Canada-born & educated surgeon who commanded” a mobile hospital in the American Expeditionary Forces: “I would like to tell the American Army and the American Navy that American Medicine can mobilize itself within a week to ten days for any emergency that may arise.”

The diseases which will menace the civilian and military populations during the next war are, according to Medical Director Charles M. Griffith of the Veterans’ Administration, influenza, pneumonia, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis, measles, mental deficiency and psychoneuroses.

Facing the destructive side of war, Major General Edward Croft, Chief of Infantry, U. S. A., took pains not to belittle the future. Said he: “We know that there will be great fleets of aircraft and great fleets of tanks. We know that motorization and mechanization are here to stay. And, despite all the humanitarian pacts ever signed, we know that gas is going to be used on an unprecedented scale. You gentlemen are going to encounter two new types of casualties in increasing numbers, namely mustard gas and out-&-out burns. It should not be an uncommon occurrence to find mustard casualties soaring close to the 100% mark in the smaller units. . . . In addition to these mustard casualties it seems to me that we must expect and prepare for another type of burn. Today there is more than one indication that thermit and white phosphorous are going to be dumped on rear area installations in appalling quantities. But even if we discount this rather gruesome possibility, we cannot escape the gasoline motor. Our tanks, our trucks, our reconnaissance and combat cars . . . will present a continuing fire and explosion hazard. And as they go up under enemy fire and enemy bombing, I rather suspect that you will find more first, second and third degree burns than any of us like to consider.”

Dr. Samuel A. White of the Chemical Warfare Service asserted that chemical warfare is more humane than bullet warfare. He exclaimed: “From actual past experience, I know that [my] son’s (and your son’s) chance of surviving, and of surviving without mutilation or lasting disability, would be increased many fold, if the war were to be fought with chemicals.”

To prepare doctors for such wartime troubles, 19 U. S. medical schools last month re-established Reserve Officer Training Corps units. Next year 31 medical schools expect to follow suit. When commissioned in the Army a doctor gets $2,000 a year as a first lieutenant, $2,640 as a captain, $3,600 as a major, $4,000 as a lieutenant colonel. In the Navy Medical Corps a lieutenant earns $2,000 a year, a lieutenant commander $2,400, a commander $3,000, a captain $3,500.