251

Replacing the Old with the New XII

Replacing the Old

with the New

1932_1935

“An obstacle that would

halt a cab-horse is a jump to a thoroughbred!”1

A Hard Assignment

Robert Urie Patterson, a warm friend of Patrick J. Hurley, the Secretary of War, had 

upset the forecasts as well as the wagers of Medical Department officers by receiving 

the appointment as General Ireland’s successor when he retired for age on June 1, 1931.2

A “dark horse” of unknown potentialities, General Patterson began a four-year tenure 

with the usual administrative house-cleaning.

General Darnall had not been well during his last year at the Army Medical Center, 

where the administrative burden became increasingly heavy, and so the Surgeon General 

persuaded Colonel Albert E. Truby, then executive officer in the SGO, to prepare for 

the line of succession at the Center by serving as Darnall’s under-study.3 This rearrangement of personnel required considerable administrative finesse, for the Secretary of 

War wanted Colonel Keller, then senior officer at the hospital, to have the forthcoming 

vacancy of Brigadier General when “Old Wooden Face” retired. In fact, until personally 

reassured by Colonel Keller, who believed rank and command were inseparable, Mr. 

Hurley refused to accept General Patterson’s statement that the Chief of the Surgical 

Service preferred continuing in professional work.4

Colonel Truby was not released from the Surgeon General’s Office until three months 

after his appointment as commandant of the Army Medical Center, but as one of his 

first official acts he issued an order designating Colonel Keller as the commander of 

Walter Reed General Hospital. In the meantime, the Surgeon General
252

Borden’s Dream

Requested orders for Colonel (William H.) Moncrief, who was an experienced 

hospital commander, to report for duty at Walter Reed Hospital. When he came, 

however, he was not allowed to command the hospital because he was junior to 

Colonel Keller, and so he was assigned as executive officer and performed the mass 

of administrative work. In practice this plan worked, but (it) was not altogether 

satisfactory. It was not possible to assign a senior medical officer as commanding 

officer of the hospital and consequently this system was not perfect.5

By contrast, Colonel Keller was not especially enthusiastic about devoting his 

professional time to administrative duties. In fact, he disregarded some of the routine 

but important details and the Adjutant General finally sent word to him informally 

that literally he must sign the officers’ efficiency reports regardless of whatever else he 

did or did not do.6 As commanding officer of the hospital he was responsible to the 

Post Commander for the functions of the Executive Office, including the Adjutant, 

Inspector and Registrar, and the professional services of surgery, medicine, laboratory, 

nursing, dietetics, and the Red Cross. Supervision of these activities consumed time 

that he believed better spent in surgery.

Brig. Gen. Albert E. Truby, M.C., Ret.

XII
253

Replacing the Old with the New

Albert Truby had wider interests than the exclusive practice of medicine.7 A brilliant 

undergraduate student in Medical School, his Army career had been both successful 

and dramatic. He had been in Cuba during the Kean-Gorgas mosquito eradication 

campaign; he had known and served with Major Walter Reed;8 and he had served the 

usual tours of duty on Army posts, which were the lot of the average Medical Officer 

prior to World War I. Moreover, following the Spanish-American War, he had commanded the old “Company B” of the Hospital Corps.

Among his other duties he had commanded an evacuation hospital; he had, like Colonel 

Philipps, been superintendent of the famous Ancon (Gorgas) Hospital in Panama; he was once 

Chief Health officer in Panama; he had duty as the Chief of the Medical Division of the Air 

Service. Like General Kennedy he had been commander at Letterman General Hospital on 

two different assignments. Like others in the long line of his professional forebears, he had 

been a Department Surgeon (Chief of the Division) in the Philippines.9 Small and rotund 

but with a brisk walk reminiscent of the proverbial rolling gait of the sailor, during his early 

years in the Army he was nicknamed “Cupid.” This appellation was earned during a tour of 

duty at Alcatraz Island, with an Infantry Division recently returned from the Philippines, 

where he frequently served as best man at weddings. The name was well chosen, for cheerful-looking and with an enviably ruddy complexion he invariably bore a more marked resemblance to his decorative progenitor on the Valentine than to a seaman or a soldier. A careful 

administrator, scholarly and humane, his 

administration was one of credit to the 

Medical Department.

There was some administrative friction 

between the hospital and the School activities at the time of the Truby appointment, 

with the hospital personnel concerned 

with many unrelated administrative functions.10 And so he was off to a troubled 

start – personnel problems and a lean 

exchequer for operating expenses. The 

test of an able administrator is not what 

can be accomplished with a great deal of 

money but how the financial ends can be made to meet when they seem hopelessly far 

apart. If Albert E. Truby was affectionately called “Cupid” because of a benign engaging manner it was a case of mistaken identity, for his pleasant, affable ways concealed 

a shrewd judgment that stood the Army Medical Center in good stead during the lean 

years of the depression.

As one of his first administrative responsibilities, he persuaded Surgeon General Patterson 

that the Center should be established on a sound military basis; this could be accomplished 

by removing from the hospital administration such functions as utilities, transportation, 

the Post Exchange, landscaping, etc.

Blacksmith Shop

XII
254

XII Borden’s Dream

There had always been complaints and friction, especially during and after World 

War I, and the work of the commanding officer became most exacting and difficult. 

Much of this trouble was caused by the improper alignment of functions. Therefore, it 

was (his) idea that the hospital should be commanded by the senior medical officer on 

duty at the hospital and that he would command the Center. This arrangement proved 

to be most satisfactory, as previously the commanding officer of the hospital had been 

greatly overworked. With the support of the Surgeon General, therefore, all of the proper 

functions of the Center and necessary personnel were gradually withdrawn from the 

hospital. This improved the morale of the Schools, which had never been satisfied with 

their status at the Center.

(He) felt that the Center commander would have plenty of work, and that the hospital 

commander could better meet the many complaints and demands on his time by War 

Department officials, members of Congress, and other people who practically required 

his personal attention to matters pertaining to the sick... under (this) arrangement, 

hospital authorities immediately investigated the complaints; corrections were made, 

and if action was required by the Center commander, he was notified and made his 

own investigation.11

World War I, Temporary Barracks; Converted to Officers’ Quarters after World War II. 

(Dahlia Street)
255

Replacing the Old with the New XII

Daily informal inspections were made to some unit, with a formal or military inspection made on Saturday. Thus every unit of the command was covered completely at least 

once a month. It was during this period that the extensive excavation and regrading 

of the area in front of Delano Hall was accomplished, with the road cut through to 

16th Street. Much of the small shrubbery was saved, transplanted to new locations and 

thus contributed to the ultimate beauty of the Post. Like General Glennan, he was an 

enthusiastic nature-lover and purchased boxwood and other decorative shrubbery. A 

central steam connection was made from the Post Power plant to family housing units 

by using soldier labor and local Post funds. The two principal sets of quarters, on the 

Main Drive, were remodeled and improved, and built-in garages were constructed. As 

he was an excellent amateur carpenter,12 his natural interest in the detail work served 

him in good stead in planning hospital construction.

Mrs. Truby, gentle, energetic and business-like, devoted a great deal of her time to Post 

welfare activities. She assisted in organizing the Chapel Guild in 1932, and she showed 

an unusual degree of consideration and interest in the families of the junior officers.13

The Post-World War I expansion of the Army was an episode of the past, but military 

personnel was loosely identified as Old Army and New Army. As the general had been 

commissioned during the Spanish-American War, the Trubys were Old Army, almost 

the last of a generation that valued the traditional customs of the Service. And so it 

was they who had prepared for issue to the Army Medical Center personnel, a booklet 

called Social Customs, whose cover bore an appropriate quotation from Burke:

Manners are more important than laws. The law teaches us but here and there 

– now and then. Manners are what vex and soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, 

barbarize or refine us by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like the air 

we breathe.

Like the leavening of the Old Army with the new, social concepts were undergoing 

changes during this period, and the records of the Truby administration clarify the 

changing concept of the military general hospital as an overflow for battle casualties into 

an institution for the everyday use of military personnel. Thus the mounting emphasis 

on professional specialization and the concept of medical care as a right rather than a 

privilege for Army personnel are both noticeable.

The singularities as well as isolation of frontier life had required that the dependents of 

military personnel receive medical care, but this was a friendly understanding between the 

Surgeon General and the line commanders and in no way required by law. After 1901 those 

hospitals having female nurses, sufficient medical service personnel and adequate bed space 

admitted dependents, at the discretion of the commanding officer. Such patients were assessed a nominal sum for maintenance, usually the amount of the ration plus a small overhead 

charge applied to the payment of female custodial employees required in servicing the wards. 

Thus custom assured provision for bed space for dependents and if some nurses objected to 

the arrangement, the doctors considered the variety of cases a professional asset.
256

XII Borden’s Dream

As a consequence, the proportion of civilian dependents admitted to Walter Reed 

increased steadily through the years and, with the Veterans Bureau patients, composed 

approximately one-third of the total admissions. For instance, of the new admissions 

during 1932, almost one-fourth were civilians:

New Admissions14

ACTIVE DUTY RETIRED TOTAL

Officers 451 74 525

Warrant Officers 25 6 31

Enlisted Men 1989 62 2051

2465 142 2607

Nurses 61 61

Student Nurses 86 86

147 147

Veterans Adm. 2774 2774

Civilians (All classes) 1672 1672

4446 4446

Grand total: 7200

1932, The Rose Garden
257

Replacing the Old with the New XII

A Change in Specialists

On May 26, 1932, Lt. Col. Shelley U. Marietta replaced Lt. Colonel Ernest R. Gentry 

as Chief of the Medical Service.15 One of the few Army doctors who was both a doctor 

of medicine and doctor of dentistry, Lt. Col. Marietta was an indefatigable worker. He 

was not only an excellent clinician, but he was one of the earlier Army doctors to become 

intensely interested in endocrinology. Quiet and reserved, he had the reputation for 

keeping abreast of current medical literature with the devotion of a high priest.

Organizationally the professional services were substantially the same. The Medical 

Service supervised the admission and classification of patients, and it was divided into a 

general section including Officers and Women, Cardiovascular-Renal, Gastro-Intestinal, 

Tuberculosis, Skin and Infectious, and Neuropsychiatric.16 Interestingly, for administrative economy, the prison ward operated as a part of the general medical service, although 

there is no record that a woman was admitted, even on legitimate business. In many 

hospitals the type of cases represented by the Officers’ and Women’s section would 

not have been separated from the general medical service, but the difference in social 

status of military patients, involving the officer-enlisted man, and the long periods of 

hospitalization, made this arrangement practicable.17

The general clinical program was obviously becoming more detailed. For instance, 

some 2,005 electrocardiograms were made at Walter Reed that year;18 eighty to ninety per 

cent of all the inpatients received some attention at the Dental Clinic; twenty-four per 

cent of all the patients received some form of physiotherapy. Although the Laboratory 

Service was still pleading for a civilian technical staff in order to obviate the turn-over 

in personnel, it nevertheless performed 170,172 procedures and autopsied more than 

seventy-five per cent of all the deaths.19

Administration of so busy an institution was complicated, for unlike civilian 

hospitals, where the average patient enters at will and leaves anxiously because of 

the high cost of medical care, the Post Commander had many rarely seen personnel 

problems. This was particularly true in regard to enlisted patients and Veterans, whose 

physical presence on the medical post 

established them as numerical members 

of the command. In the case of military 

personnel this included discipline, travel 

orders, furloughs or leave, as in the case 

of the Troop Command assigned for 

maintenance of the organization.

Receptacles for clothing and personal 

articles were provided for the ward patients, 

but this practice encouraged uncontrolled freedom and absence without 

leave, as well as encouraging the easy 

storage of liquor and other contraband.20 Post Exchange, WRGH, formerly Officers’ 

Pavilion No. I in World War I
258

XII Borden’s Dream

There were fewer nurses per patient on convalescent wards than found in the average 

civilian hospital, for the corpsmen were able to discharge the non-professional nursing 

duties. Still, lack of constant oversight by a nurse-officer or non-commissioned officer 

permitted a certain laxity in discipline. In contrast, the wide dispersal of wards necessitated a higher ratio of custodial personnel to patient than might otherwise have been 

expected, and unavoidably some attendants could always be coaxed to serve as intermediaries between the patients and the pleasures of the outside world.

The wards in the Main Building were designed with large private rooms, but each ward 

had an open cubicle, with beds for about six convalescent patients, and they were troublesome to service. Cleaning was not the only problem, however, for the assignment of beds 

in cubicles was a sensitive point Colonel Marietta finding that where officers or women 

were involved there was “much difficulty experienced in caring for the seriously ill and 

aside from the question of the seriously ill, officers and women usually accept(ed) open 

ward accommodations reluctantly. Although theoretically the matter of rank and prestige 

should not enter into the assignment of beds,” said the Chief of the Medical Service, “it 

is in reality a practical and troublesome problem that has to be met daily.”21

General Truby apparently disapproved of using an Army hospital as an experimental 

station for new pharmaceuticals, even if the required quantities were issued gratis by 

the civilian drug houses, for he realized that proper listing of experimental data would 

be laborious, time-consuming and require auxiliary personnel already in short supply. 

Trained in an era where the art and practice of medicine was a rite, he disapproved of 

the growing tendency among Army doctors to use proprietary drugs rather than write 

their own prescriptions.22

In-Service Problems

The Veterans Administration was expanding its own hospitalization programs, and 

whereas in 1931 the Army Medical Department provided 2,265 of the total number of 

9,732 beds available to veterans in other governmental facilities,23 a gradual reduction 

in the use of Army facilities had set in. Legislation passed on March 20, 1933 denied 

admission to many Veterans formerly eligible under the largesse authorized in June 1924, 

for sixty-two per cent of the cases treated in the intervening years were for non-service 

connected disabilities. The total admissions for 1933 were only eight per cent less than 

in 1932, but the cut was spread to the non-Veterans’ hospitals and Walter Reed felt the 

pinch when the auxiliary funds were withdrawn.24

The Veterans Administration was prepared to hospitalize practically all of its own 

cases by 1933, a change in policy that would have created a large deficit in unoccupied 

military hospital beds had the Army not been authorized by Executive Order No. 

6101, April 5, 1933, and Circular No. 3, Civilian Conservation Corps, May 12, to treat 

non-elective cases.25 The admission of a generally younger age group of men changed 

the type of case treated, the Annual Report for 1933 recording that:
259

Replacing the Old with the New XII

There was a definite loss in stomach and gall bladder surgery, in cases presenting 

kidney and bladder pathology, in the surgical derelicts which are passed from hospital 

to hospital, in old fractures with mal-and non-union, in acquired deformities, in the 

crippling arthritis, and in chronic chest infections. There was a marked increase in acute 

fractures, traumatism to soft parts of the extremities, infected wounds, acute abdominal 

conditions, inguinal hernia, traumatic eye conditions and acute empyema.

Staff physicians at Walter Reed were observing an increase in the number of cancer cases, 

and as the bed situation in Army hospitals then encouraged the ready admission of dependents, 

in 1931 the Surgeon General’s Office issued Circular No. 25, proposing an annual voluntary 

examination of adult women residing at or near Army stations, for the early detection of 

cancer. Many other remediable physical conditions were observed, and by 1933, although the 

admission of surgical cases from the United States at large remained practically the same, 

there was a marked increase in the amount of female surgery performed at Walter Reed.

Further, in spite of the changing character of the clinical material provided by CCC cases, 

the inpatient admission of 7,122 in 1930 dropped to 6,431 in 1934. Notwithstanding the numerical decrease in patients, the number of laboratory procedures performed increased from 99,833 

to 199,158 in 1934. Routine requests for blood counts were beginning to constitute a bottleneck 

in the discharge of laboratory work, for often as many as 150 day were requested.26

As the four-year fellowship program was in effect Colonel Marietta believed that the

Rotation of officers for training purposes (was) an important function of the Medical 

Service, officers without previous experience in a general Hospital being so rotated as to 

afford them two or three months experience in each of the various departments; senior 

officers of the rank of Major are taken into the office of the Chief of Medical Service 

for one month of administrative training.

If the Commandant of the Army Medical School, by then Colonel P.W. Huntington, 

believed he had a legitimate complaint over the amount of time the faculty members spent 

on routine administrative duties, Colonel Marietta likewise believed the ward doctors on 

his service were penalized, for they spent considerably more time at meetings of the CDD 

Boards, Disposition Boards, Section VIII Boards, Court Martial, physical examination of 

applicants for the U.S. Military Academy and instruction of officers at the Army Medical 

School than appeared advisable to the best interest of the professional services. During 1934, 

thirty-four ward doctors at Walter Reed gave 146 hours of the scheduled course at the School, 

primarily at the clinic and ward level.27

Colonel Marietta was considered to be one of the best internists in the military medical 

service, and like Colonel Keller he gave unstintingly of his time to both patients and staff. As 

the administrative requirements were creating a critical situation, and, in his opinion, 

jeopardizing patient care, a year later he reported that
260

XII Borden’s Dream

Clinical instruction makes a major 

demand on the time of the officers of the Medical Service. It is 

believed it could be better carried 

out by trained teachers in the subjects listed who could devote their 

full time to clinical teaching and 

the necessary preparation that is 

demanded for good teaching. Such 

activity could be combined with 

clinical research in contradiction 

to laboratory research.28

Allergy studies were increasingly 

a part of the general diagnostic survey of patients, and one medical officer was 

trained in this specialty at the New York Post Graduate School.29 In June 1932, 

an Allergy Clinic was not only opened on the first floor of the Main Building, but 

an additional specialist was being trained for relief work. By 1934 an air filter had 

been installed in one of the private rooms on the Officers’ Section as a diagnostic 

measure in the treatment of pollen asthma and hay fever. The care of diabetic 

patients, fifty per cent of whom were chronic and for a time had their own dining room, were assigned to this section and instructed in routine urinalysis and 

insulin dosage.30

In 1932, 2005 electrocardiograms were made at Walter Reed General Hospital, the 

tracings showing a wide variety of clinical conditions. During the first part of the year, 

when the majority of patients were veterans, there was a preponderance of degenerative 

heart conditions with a “generous sprinkling of purely leuitic cases.” With the advent of 

the Civilian Conservation Corps and a younger group of men, a larger number of rheumatic heart lesions were found in the 1303 

tracings of a year later.

Only 1303 CCC cases were admitted to 

Walter Reed during 1933, but by the end of 

1934, a total of some 3,000 case histories 

had been handled by the Registrar’s Office. 

This was not only a tremendous volume 

of work, but seventy-five per cent of the 

records were defective in some way, thereby requiring a careful check of interviews, 

additional telephone calls, or the return of 

the records to other stations in order to 

secure accurate information. Rea Swimming Pool later assigned to Officers 

Club use.

Post Gymnasium, 1933; site later occupied by 

permanent barracks
261

Replacing the Old with the New XII

For the Sick

Appropriations for the new laundry, bakery and Quartermaster warehouse were secured 

in 1931, with the buildings completed during 1932.31 In 1933, the old open cage elevators, installed in the Main Building at the time of construction, were replaced with modern cabs in 

enclosed shafts. The temporary wooden structures were demolished during the year, and two 

auto parking spaces were constructed for staff use, one between the Laboratory and Isolation Ward and one in the northeast court of the Main Building. A much-needed apartment 

for eighteen families of non-commissioned officers was built on the Fern Street side of the 

reservation and occupied in December 1933. As replacement for the rapidly deteriorating 

temporary structure surrounding the Rea swimming pool, General Truby proposed a new 

pool, one connected with the gymnasium.

The Post Exchange surplus fund, used to subsidize various welfare and recreational 

activities on the Post, provided no dividends in 1932,32 a factor which sharply curtailed book 

purchases for The Library. The Army-Veterans Administration contract system permitted 

assignment of some of the funds for welfare and recreation activities, including the purchase 

of library books and the payment of a certain number of civilian employees. In accord with 

the general reduction in Veterans Administration activities at Walter Reed, some civilian aides 

were necessarily suspended from duty for want of Medical Department Hospital Funds to 

pay them. In April 1933 The Library book fund was eliminated,33 and with the reduction of 

patients during the summer months, one civilian librarian was suspended for a five-month 

period. Similarly, the senior bracemaker from the Orthopedic Brace Shop was discharged 

in 1933 but rehired in 1934.

Social effects of the depression were felt in various ways. For instance, admission 

requirements for appointment in the Army Nurse Corps were strengthened in 1934, no 

doubt as part of the general curtailment of the over-production of nurses during the 

late twenties. Possibly because as the Army School of Nursing had adopted the national 

slogan of “Fewer and Better Nurses,” and there was some feeling among Regular Army 

Nurses that the School graduates received preferential treatment, a number of the 

Regular Army Nurses, although holding 

three-year appointments, began attending 

night school in order to comply with the 

requirements of high school graduation or 

its equivalent, imposed on new members of 

the Corps. A similar enthusiasm for education was manifest among the enlisted men, 

and a specific appropriation was finally 

made from Post Exchange funds in order 

to provide for the purchase of appropriate texts for the student groups.34 Other 

signs of retrenchment were significant; for 

example, in 1931 the Chief Physiotherapy First Gasoline Station, AMC
262

XII Borden’s Dream

Aide was paid $2500 annually but by 1934 this sum was reduced to $2100. The head 

aides by then received only $1620 and the aides only $1440 per annum, with deductions 

made for quarters and rations as the young women resided on the Post.35

General Truby was, of course, distressed that circumstances compelled curtailment 

of many activities that were amenities to the sick. He was well aware that sudden 

withdrawal of the CCC funds would create a situation similar to that resulting from 

withdrawal of the Veterans Administration during the year before, and he protested 

vigorously that the proportion of Regular Army patients and their dependents treated 

at Walter Reed justified a more stable payroll situation. The professional staff was not 

only engaged in research and teaching, a never-ending responsibility in the training of 

doctors, but he believed that “an institution of (its) size and standing should not be 

dependent on incidental funds for the payment of vitally important work in the treatment of the sick.”36

As Affecting Morale

General Orders #26, Headquarters, Army Medical Center, July 22, 1933 placed all 

of the Post enlisted complement in one Detachment, under the jurisdiction of one 

Detachment Commander. For administrative purposes the Detachment was divided 

into A Company for headquarters administration; B Company, auxiliary manpower for 

the professional services; and C Company for assignment to the Army Medical School. 

The authorized enlisted strength at this time was 576, with an average strength of 581.37

The unstable civilian work situation favored the Army in one respect, for a higher type 

recruit was obtainable in 1932, some with college education and many with two or more 

years of high school.38 The situation appears to have changed in 1933, for the Troop Commander noted that “the physical condition and development of the enlisted personnel 

(was) below the standard of the line organizations due to the long hours of duty, the 

confining work and the shortage of personnel necessary to carry on activities.”

No internes were trained at Walter Reed in 1933, and the Army School of Nursing 

was closed officially on January 31. The 137 Regular Army and Reserve nurses present 

on December 31, 1932 dropped to 106 by December 31, 1933. This decrease was more 

theoretical than actual, for on August 2, twenty-five civilian nurses were employed with 

CCC funds.

General Orders No. 15, Headquarters, Army Medical Center, June 5, 1934, effective June 30, reorganized the Detachment into two distinct organizations rather than 

three companies. The Walter Reed Detachment provided enlisted men for the hospital, 

including attendants for ambulance call and the enlisted mess. The Headquarters Service Detachment provided personnel for all non-nursing and administrative functions 

using enlisted personnel.

Meeting the requirements for the sick is necessarily a never-ending responsibility for 

hospital personnel. Although the enlisted men worked a twelve-hour day, a requirement 

deplored by the hospital commander, the Detachment strength was usually considered 
263

Replacing the Old with the New XII

Hospital Corps, Lounge, Main Barracks, 

1933

inadequate for current needs. Civilian hospitals were using an increasing number of WPA 

(civilian) workers for auxiliary services during this period, and the Army, long dependent 

on the services of soldier-labor, was unknowingly in the process of following suit. At 

various times during 1934, some forty-seven enlisted men were replaced by civilian 

operators, janitors and food service employees, through use of CCC and VB funds.

The corpsmen were encouraged to participate in athletic activities, and in spite of 

the long hours of work, the Detachment morale continued to be “fairly high.” According 

to the command, more liberal furloughs, better housing conditions and shorter hours 

further would improve it.39 As in all strata of American life, a social change was setting 

in, but it was not apparently recognized as such.

Of Interest to the Medical Department

As one of his first official acts as Commandant of the Army Medical Center, General 

Truby presided at the last graduation exercises of the Army Medical School to be held in 

the Red Cross house, January 29, 1932. With the exception of a short but intensive course 

offered two flight surgeons in roentgenology, ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology, 

orthopedic and general surgery,40 few radical changes had been made in the curriculum 

since the war. The Army Dental School, then housed in one the semi-permanent 

buildings erected during World War I, continued certain collaborative research work 

with the United States Bureau of Standards. The most spectacular medical research 

work of the depression years occurred a year later when an immunizing substance was 

isolated from pneumocci, using the Felton Method. Pneumonia prophylaxis, tried in all 

the CCC camps, was evaluated to determine its usefulness in protection against types 

I and II pneumonia.41

CCC fatalities from pneumonia in the winter months of 1933 equaled 12.5 out of 

every hundred cases but were reduced almost fifty per cent after pneumonia vaccine 

and oxygen therapy were used with the serum.42 Work in the Army Medical School 

Recreation at the Red Cross “Hut”
264

Borden’s Dream

1932, Palm House and part of Rose Garden

XII

vaccine laboratory was interrupted during the year when some of the old sterilizers 

and equipment, relocated from Louisiana Avenue in 1923, were replaced.43 Further, 

the center and North Wings of the School building were completed and occupied 

during the year,44 thus providing, along with additional office and laboratory space, 

a handsome auditorium named for the one-time Surgeon General Sternberg. In spite 

of the lean state of the Army Medical Center budget, General Truby was successful 

in securing handsome red velvet drapes for the windows, an accomplishment not to 

be overlooked in view of the general curtailment of spending.

Major Raymond A. Kelser, V.C., who first demonstrated that the bite of the Aëdes 

Aegypti mosquito transmitted equine encephalitis, was still at work on this problem. 

By 1933 he had not only identified seven additional species as capable of transmitting 

the disease, but he had demonstrated that the human race was likewise susceptible 

to encephalitis, with mosquitoes as the transmitting agent.45

The suspended research activities at the Army Medical School during these 

years was not unlike the national income, and there is no better index to the state 

of affairs than the Surgeon General’s usually ample report, which in 1935 reduced 

the space allotted to the Army Medical School to slightly less than three pages.
265

Replacing the Old with the New XII

The Thoroughbred

Hospitals, like people, show definite characteristics, especially those institutions 

where the personnel is permanent or semi-permanent. And so it was at Walter Reed, 

where some staff members, like Colonel Keller, remained on duty continuously for 

a number of years. Others were repeaters, for many of the specialists served their 

four-year tour, then transferred to other general hospitals to wait out the restrictions 

imposed by the Manchu Law. Washington was a pleasant place to live, and there was 

always enough “hot” news of impending international calamities and Capitol intrigue 

to keep even the poorest listener busy sorting fact from fancy. Young doctors new to 

the Army coveted the Walter Reed assignment; doctors who had grown old in the Army 

were reluctant to leave.

In 1930 Norman T. Kirk returned from a two-year tour in the Philippines to resume 

his place as Chief of the Orthopedic Section at Walter Reed and his pleasant association 

with his praeceptor, Colonel Keller. He attacked professional problems with his usual 

zeal and proceeded to treat cases transferred from other institutions with a sure, deft 

touch, noting in the Annual Report that the profession as a whole was inadequately 

trained in treating fractures and first aid splinting for transportation.46

Colonel Keller was known as a martinet and hard taskmaster, and his young satellite as a temperamental instrument-thrower. As if two individualist surgeons were not 

enough for the nursing staff and corpsmen to cope with, the third, James C. Kimbrough, 

Major, Medical Corps, was assigned Chief of the Urology section in 1930. After arrival 

of the tall Lincolnesque Tennessean, the Urology Section pre-empted first place in 

the Walter Reed “Hall of Fame” reserved for surgical prima donnas. For in him there 

were combined all the most marked characteristics of the other two “K’s,” plus some 

additional ones that were pure Kimbrough.

It was a poor day when he failed to toss at least two sounds back into the instrument 

tray or rumble and grumble in well-feigned rage that he could never get his personnel 

trained to suit him. Amazingly, he could enter the cystoscopy room like March’s proverbial roaring lion and leave it as meek as a ewe lamb. Now and then someone crossed 

him, and a few had the courage of nurse Clytie Reynolds, who indulged his mercurial 

moods and endured the long hours of work for some four years, and then quietly 

requested transfer to another hospital “where she could rest.”47 Sergeant Ralph Green, 

“Doc” Green to old timers, was hardier and stayed on duty in the Genito-Urinary Clinic 

for thirty years. He quietly patched up the pieces when the current explosion was over; 

for him the “Kernel” could do no wrong.

Although long a bachelor, when Jimmy Kimbrough finally married, he was one of the most 

domesticated of husbands and indulgent of fathers. There was seldom a conversation that 

failed to include Pauline and Jane, or Jane and Pauline, depending on whether the wife or 

young daughter was uppermost in his thoughts at the moment. A diligent and prolific 

writer on professional subjects, he was also an avid history scholar and general reader. A 

favorite of the senior librarian; who invariably saved the most recent accessions for his 
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perusal, he was sure to make at least one daily visit, especially after the relocation of the 

Urology Clinic from the second floor center of the Old Main to the section adjoining 

the Library. This routine became firmly established, and when he returned to Walter 

Reed in the late thirties as a repeater, he once remarked in stentorian tones for all to 

hear that “By God” he sometimes had difficulty telling which he loved more, Pauline 

and Jane or Miss Schick and The Library – but he couldn’t do without any of them!48

It was not unusual for him to amble into the Library for a last-minute review of some 

new urological technique, prior to going to surgery, and then regale the librarian with 

his latest story, shaggy dog or otherwise, to the intense interest of all readers within 

hearing, for there was no auditory privacy in the Medical Library, merely a convenient 

regrouping of book shelves. There was a period, during his first tour at Walter Reed, 

when doctors were discussing privately and the press was hinting publicly, that monkey 

gland treatments were amorously more effective than a drink from the Conquistadores’ 

“Fountain of Youth.”

As the popular discussion of this operation became more open, “Big Jim” had many 

pleading requests that he become a dispenser of lost virility. As he was a conservative 

surgeon, one who took no unnecessary risks, the suggestions made him irritable!49 He 

came stomping into the medical section of The Library one morning, requesting a full 

bibliography on the subject. While thumbing through the current periodical literature, 

he described the operation in detail, to the delight of the over-the-bookstack-listeners. 

It was, the librarian meditated later, a little like a story she once heard on Mr. Coolidge. 

On his return from church the laconic President faced his inquisitive wife, who asked 

him the topic of the minister’s sermon.

“Sin,” answered her taciturn husband briefly.

“What did he say?” persisted Mrs. Coolidge.

“He was agin it,” said the President.

And that expressed the current opinion of the Chief of the Urology Section exactly, at 

least on the subject of vasectomies.50

A tall man, with a jointed-doll gait, “Big Jim” had a habit of rocking back and forth 

on the balls of his feet as he talked. He often peered at his listeners over the top of 

his bifocal glasses or, head back and chest out, squinted at them owlishly through the 

lower half. Noted for his good stories and a bookshelf collection of trinkets erotica, 

contributed by amused patients, his habit of unhesitatingly voicing his opinion earned 

for him the reputation for being severe. Slow-footed internes faced their three-month 

rotating service in the Genito-Urinary Clinic with apprehension, for even the most 

agile had difficulty in meeting the pace set by “the old man.” 

More often than not patients were well indoctrinated with Kimbrough-lore before 

arriving at the Genito-Urinary Clinic. As they were unaware of his gentle and skillful 
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technique, some faced the urological examination with fear and trembling, only to learn 

that his gruffness was a shield for hiding his immense sympathy for human suffering. 

Perhaps the only time in his life that he was ever completely nonplussed was when a 

frail and trembling little old lady of seventy, scheduled for a cystoscopy, faced him like 

an infuriated bantam hen, and before he could say a word, announced in quavering 

voice, “I’m not scared of you, I’m not scared of you a bit!”

Born on a farm near Madisonville, Tennessee, a small town later made famous by 

his cousin, Senator Estes Kefauver, Jimmy Kimbrough early began to make his own 

way in life. As one of several children he learned the give and take of daily adjustments 

along with the rugged philosophy of his native region, where a little money and a little 

moonshine whisky each went a long way. Honest and unpretentious, he was never known 

to take part in Service intrigue or in any way to put his own welfare ahead of that of 

Col. James C. Kimbrough, Chief of Urology
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his Corps. His dry salty humor and well calculated posturing as a “toughie” formed a 

natural smoke screen that concealed his warm-hearted affection for his fellow man, and 

a thinly overlaid crust of hard-shell Baptist doctrine.51

But recently graduated from medical school at the onset of World War I, he was, 

like thousands of other patriotic young Americans, impatient to be off to war. While he 

was in Chattanooga on a weekend trip, one of his classmates persuaded him to take the 

examination for the Regular Army, and he complied in jest. He had not heard the results 

of the examination when the 17th Engineer Unit began assembling at Fort McPherson, 

Georgia, but he packed most of his personal possessions in a new cowhide bag, treasured 

graduation present, bought himself a uniform, and went along.

His knowledge of American history and especially the Civil War, when the command had loose control of men and the muster rolls, had shaped his ideas of Army life. 

When the regiment was ordered from Fort McPherson to New York for embarkation 

to France, young Dr. Kimbrough, still with no commission, climbed on the troop train, 

new bag and all. As the troops embarked on the transport, the men were deprived of 

their personal luggage, which was tossed on a rapidly mounting pile, and issued duffle 

bags. Parting with his most valued possession was painful, for it seemed doubtful that 

a poor boy from his section of Tennessee would soon have another so handsome. As 

he wandered around the port deck for a last minute glimpse of New York, he saw his 

shining new suitcase roll to the base of the luggage pile. The temptation was too much. 

He made a quick trip down the gangplank, recovered his property and smugly departed 

for France, the only man aboard with a cowhide bag.

His anxiety to get “over there” in a hurry brought other complications, for it had 

not occurred to him that regimental officers were issued personal orders. He was not 

accustomed to having much money so the absence of funds during his first three months 

in Europe didn’t bother him much. There was always a good poker game under way and 

he held his own with contemporaries in the National Army. This idyllic situation didn’t 

last, however, for as a good many Regular Army sergeants and enlisted men received 

temporary promotions as officers, they invaded the poker games – and invariably won. 

When reduced to his last dollar, he presented himself to the Paymaster, learning to his 

amazement, that insofar as the Army was concerned, James C. Kimbrough of Madisonville, Tennessee, was not commissioned nor was he in France! When the matter was 

finally cleared-up, Lt. Kimbrough learned that he had passed the examination creditably, 

but his official papers had not been forwarded after his unceremonious departure.52

According to other Kimbrough legends, he was just as eager to be off to war in 1942 

and though older, he was not a more cautious man. As Chief of Professional Services 

for the European Theater of Operation, comparable to Colonel Keller’s World War I 

position with the AEF, the indomitable Jimmy rushed ashore from a heaving landing 

barge while more timorous associates awaited “time and tide.” He wanted to be the 

first medic ashore in France and airily disregarded the barge commander’s threat of 

court martial!
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Known for many years within and without the Medical Department as an outstanding urologist, he was, like Ernest R. Gentry, well able to retain control of professional 

affairs in his own section. Whereas some other Army surgeons branched out into general 

surgery in order to become eligible for the position of chief of a general hospital surgical service, Jimmy Kimbrough remained with his specialty. He seemed unconcerned 

that some men he had trained as lieutenants inherited the higher administrative positions, and when the Medical Department “promotion-pattern” changed noticeably 

after World War II, and some less well known specialists were rewarded with general 

officer grades, he shruggingly chalked the circumstance up to the fortunes of war. And 

so he began his third tour of duty at Walter Reed in 1946, saying if the Army would 

only leave him alone he could be happy until he died. Retired by statutory regulations 

in 1948, he continued on active duty through a yearly contract arrangement with the 

Surgeon General’s Office.

Many distinguished men were his patients, and regardless of the difference in accommodations provided by bed assignments for general officer or soldiers, each case 

received the same degree of unpretentious but thorough professional attention. The 

Medical Department was employing an uncommonly large number of civilian doctors 

as consultants in 1948, and when General George Catlett Marshall, one-time Chief of 

Staff of the Army, Secretary of State and later Secretary of Defense, was admitted to 

Walter Reed for a kidney operation. Strictly ethical in all his relationships, “Big Jim” 

advised his patient that he could have any consultant, or all the consultants, to attend 

him. Interested eye witnesses reported that the astute General merely smiled and said 

quietly, “What’s wrong with the Army?” What was good enough for his men was good 

enough for him.

The day selected for surgery found the individualistic Colonel Kimbrough in a more 

mellow mood than usual. His low moment came in the early morning hours, when he 

was shaving. As he looked at himself in the glass, meditating all the while on the surgical 

sequence of the next few hours, he said to himself, “Jim, you ugly old devil, you’re taking 

a powerful chance operating on the greatest man in history. What if he dies on you?”

The so-called “ugly old devil” made no audible reply and so, sighing a bit over his 

responsibility to the nation, he stalked off to the hospital at his customary hour, 7:30 

a.m. In his usual modest way and without special fanfare, he discharged his simple 

duty, supported only by his own skill and the homely philosophy of the Tennessee hill 

people – “The Lord despises a coward.” 53

References

1. Jose Maria Sert.

2. Interview with Maj. Gen. Robert U. Patterson, M.C. Ret., Aug. 24, 1950.

3. Ibid.
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4. Ibid.

5. Ltr from Albert E. Truby, Brig. Gen., Ret., to the writer, May 19, 1951.

6. Interview with Col. Herbert N. Dean, MAC, Ret., Apr. 12, 1950.

7. Promoted to Brigadier General May 24, 1933, date of rank retroactive to January 1933.

8. Albert E. Truby, Memoir of Walter Reed... New York, Paul B. Hoeber, Inc. 1943, Chpt I, pg 

1-13.

9. Medical and Military Notes, The Military Surgeon, Vol. 73, 1933, pg 38-39.

10. Interview with Brig. Gen. Albert E. Truby, M.C., Ret., June 27-28, 1950.

11. Ltr from Truby to writer, op cit.

12. Patterson interview, op cit.

13. Personal knowledge of the writer.

14. Annual Rpt TSG... 1932, pg 261

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid, pg 262.

17. Annual Rpt WRGH, 1932.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid, 1933.

23. Annual Rpt, 1931, U.S. Veterans Adm., GPO, pg 20.

24. Ibid, 1933, pg 11.

25. Ibid.

26. Annual Rpt WRGH, 1934.

27. Ibid, 1933.

28. Ibid, 1934.
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29. Ibid, 1932.

30. Ibid, 1933.

31. Annual Rpt TSG... 1931, pg 37.

32. Ibid, pg 267.

33. Annual Rpt WRGH, 1933.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid, 1934.

36. Ibid, 1934.

37. Ibid, 1933.

38. Ibid, 1932.

39. Ibid, 1934.

40. Annual Rpt TSG... 1932, pg 248.

41. AMB, No. 42, Oct. 1937, pg 40-41.

42. Reduced to 6.4 per 100 in 1939. Edgar Erskine Hume, History of the Ass. of Military Surgeons 

of the U.S., 1891–1941, pg 176.

43. SGO 391.1-2 (AMS) GG, War Rec. Div., Nat’l Archives.

44. Annual Rpt WRGH, 1932.

45. R.A. Kelser, “Mosquitoes as vectors of equine encephalomyelitis,” in Am. Vet. Med. Ass., May 

1933, VS Vol. 35, No. 5. (quoted)

46. Annual Rpt, WRGH, 1934, pg 40.

47. As told to the writer in 1939. 

48. Conversation with Col. James C. Kimbrough, 1941.

49. See Rpt, Urology Section, Annual Report WRGH, 1931–1934.

50. Conversation with Miss Mary E. Schick, 1941.

51. Personal knowledge of the writer.

52. Social conversation Colonel James C. Kimbrough, 1939.

53. Social conversation with Colonel James C. Kimbrough, MC, Ret., Sept. 20, 1950.
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