Medicine: Rehabilitating Airmen

When Dr. Howard A. Rusk got into the Army, he was appalled to see hospital convalescents lolling around with nothing to do. So the tall, good-looking Lieutenant Colonel, who used tu practice in St. Louis, teach at Washington University Medical School, got permission from his superiors to start a little recreation and reconditioning program for convalescents at Jefferson Barracks, Mo. He provided exercises graduated according to the sick soldiers’ ability, and courses such as camouflage, airplane-model building, mathematics and (for illiterates) handwriting.

Air Surgeon General David Grant and General H. H. Arnold soon installed the system in all A.A.F. hospitals, with Dr. Rusk in charge (TIME, April 26). It now affects about 60,000 men in 259 hospitals. Convalescents have made thousands of plane models, practiced sending and receiving radio code while still in bed, planted 200 Victory gardens, studied 50 languages and dialects, done exercises graduated from toe-wiggling in bed to ten-mile hikes with full packs. The hospitals find that under the A.A.F. system 1) 25% fewer men have relapses; 2) convalescence from certain acute, contagious diseases (e.g., virus pneumonia, scarlet fever and measles) has been cut 30 to 40%.

With this experience behind him, Colonel Rusk was taking on an extra job last week. He has charge of rehabilitating all Air Forces casualties returned from over seas, many of whom, when fit again, will go on to the Air Forces new Redistribution Program (TIME, Nov. 8). To handle these men the Air Forces has eight rehabilitation centers, from Coral Gables to Spokane. By last week—the program has just begun—the first 50 men had gone through. Like the thousands who will follow, they fall into two main groups:

Wounded Men. The A.A.F. system gives every soldier a sense of continuous progress, leaves no room for developing a feeling of hopelessness. A man who has lost an arm may be told by the nurse on the plane back from Africa just what an artificial limb can do for him. In the hos pital he will start learning to use the appliance and begin studying a new vocation, civilian or Army. A one-armed pilot who is to become an instructor will have started learning how to teach before going to a Redistribution center for assignment to more schooling or duty.

Fatigue Cases. These are the men whose vague but very real ailment the Army diagnoses as “fatigue, whatever that is”—jitters, insomnia, loss of confidence and weight. One tense veteran of 39 missions was a hard nut to crack until the flight surgeon invited him out on a double date with two sisters who had a pilot brother. On finding the girls understood his language, the flyer began to talk about his combat experience, about seeing his friends crack up. After that he went back to the center, got three good nights’ sleep, played 18 holes of golf the fourth day. Then he told the flight surgeon he wanted to go back to duty.