75

Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

Professional Training

for Medical Personnel

1906_1912

“The man who thinks his whole

duty is done when he treats the sick is mistaken.” 1

Life at Washington Barracks moved in its usual pleasant groove in 1906, and during 

the year 521 patients were admitted to the little hospital, sixty of whom underwent 

major surgical operations.2 Venereal disease continued to lead as the principal cause 

of military hospital admission, discharge and non-effectives,3 with the Infantry having 

the highest rate per organization and the Hospital Corps the lowest.4 The latter small 

group was afflicted with manpower problems at this time, for under the three-year enlistment program about one third of the Corps was lost annually. The Surgeon General 

attributed the current lack of interest to ease in obtaining civilian employment “and the 

general prosperity of the working classes.”5

 Nevertheless, the Army was becoming more 

stringent in its selection policies, with medical officers rather than the more lenient 

civilian doctors examining prospective recruits and screening those who might in time 

advance claims against the government for questionable line of duty defects.6

At Washington Barracks, Company “A” moved from its cramped and insanitary quarters in the lower end of the post to a frame building abandoned by the engineers, but 

the new comforts were short-lived, for on October 2, 1906 the personnel was assigned 

to constitute the complement for Field Hospital No. 2 of the Cuban Expeditionary 

Brigade. On October 4, the Acting Secretary of War authorized Company “C” as a 

replacement.7

 The old barracks buildings were due to be razed, and as Walter Reed U.S. 

Army General Hospital then was under construction, the Surgeon General proposed 

meeting the housing shortage with a new barracks and school building as part of the 

general hospital unit.
76

V Borden’s Dream

Esprit de Corps, 1908

Attractive accommodations for enlisted men, possibly as a means of offsetting discontent, were beginning to interest the Surgeon General by this time, and his meditations 

on the necessity for minimizing the difference in the material comforts afforded officers 

and enlisted men is one of the first faint indications of the philosophy of identification 

so evident in the findings proposed by the Doolittle Board after World War II. For, said 

the Surgeon General in relation to the proposed barracks construction of 1908, 

It is now generally conceded by sanitarians that all plumbing fixtures 

should be open and exposed as freely as possible to light and air. Officers 

would not bathe nearly so frequently if they had to go down into a dark, 

damp and often cold cellar to take a bath, and enlisted men are much the 

same sort of animal.8
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Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

Personnel shortages were not restricted to the Hospital Corps, for a year later the 

Medical Corps discovered there were not only many position vacancies for junior officers, but “no applications were received from the (young doctors from the) medical 

centers of the country....” The increased emphasis on use of Regular Army medical 

officers in the recruiting service, on examining and retiring boards and on the larger 

military posts was not only straining the personnel resources to the utmost, but hospitalization in general hospitals was becoming popular, a condition which created new 

requirements for experienced medical officers. This increased the cost of the hospitalization program somewhat, for in addition to equipping the hospitals and providing 

the staff “the government (was) put to considerable expense in transferring patients to 

general hospitals....”9

The Surgeon General, Kean and Ireland believed that passage of the Medical Department Reorganization Bill and an increase in the pay of doctors would solve the 

manpower shortage. Yet in spite of the active support of the President, Secretaries Root 

and Taft, the Chief of Staff and the General Staff, the bill still hung in the balance. In 

the meantime the Department found it necessary to employ a large number of civilian doctors “... men without military training, with but little knowledge of the special 

sanitary duties of medical officers in the field and whose professional efficiency (was) 

below that demanded of the commissioned medical officer.”10 As easy solution to the 

lack of interest in Medical Corps assignments, some blamed the existing of unfavorable legislation.11

The lack of interest in the military which always besets the Army following a war 

had not only set in, but the changed status of students decreased the number of applications for the course at the Army Medical School after 1900. In 1907 ten of the 

eleven student applicants completed the course. The faculty attempted to meet some 

of the academic problems by recommending modification of the preliminary and final 

examinations,12 for it was well aware that “the Army Medical Service (had) lost much 

of its attraction for the bright young graduates from (the) best Medical Schools.” Concurrently with the disinterest in military medical service the peacetime hospitalization 

requirements were increasing.

Major Borden was one of the better known military surgeons of his time, and the 

inpatient census at the U.S. Army General Hospital mounted steadily. Administration was 

burdensome, for the building was old and the struggle to keep the plant and utilities in 

adequate repair was recorded annually. Of the 395 patients admitted during 1907, sixtyone had major operations, a heavy case load, for the surgeon was a slow and methodical 

technician.13 He was not too busy, however, to defend staunchly the economic advantages 

to the government of close observation of patients over a prolonged period.

Major Borden frequently represented the Surgeon General on inspection trips involving the construction and administration of both civilian and military hospitals,14 and so 

he was, during this period, probably the best informed medical officer on the subject of 

hospital construction. Consequently he watched with interest the development of Wal-
78

V Borden’s Dream

Brightwood Avenue, N.W., about 1908

ter Reed, on which he had lavished so much time and attention. He 

had not only “planned the Walter Reed Hospital, and was chiefly 

instrumental in getting through Congress the appropriation 

for it,”15 noted Kean, the thoughtful recorder, but he hoped, 

with all the pride of accomplishment, actually to be the 

first commanding officer. He had, however, been 

stationed in Washington since 1898.16 Under the 

four-year detail system he was not only some 

three years overdue for reassignment, 

but some of his contemporaries 

were jealous of his firm entrenchment with Congress,17 afraid, 

perhaps, that he might become a contender for 

the Surgeon Generalcy. The newly organized 

personnel division of that office was controlled by the astute Major Ireland, and, as the Surgeon 

General admitted, he was under considerable pressure from “the front office” to have 

Dr. Borden transferred.18

By War Department Special Orders No. 75, April 1, 1907, William Cline Borden was 

relieved from duty at Washington Barracks, scheduled, on expiration of his leave, to sail 

on the first available transport for the Philippines.19 The Washington Evening Star paid 

tribute to his activity in the movement which resulted in Congressional appropriations 
79

Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

Although not embittered over the circumstances which prevented him from actually commanding the new hospital, Major Borden was disheartened. He had served his 

Corps long and well under the peculiar requirements of the day. In the late summer 

of 1908 he was required to make the long return trip from Manila to Washington to 

meet the Examining Board for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. During this ordeal he 

suffered a coronary attack and was immediately retired from the Army. He became, in 

May 1909, the month his brain-child, the Walter Reed U.S. Army Hospital, opened to 

patients, dean of the George Washington (Columbian College) Medical School.25

The Occupation

When Company “B” of the Hospital Corps returned from Cuba, the already crowded 

quarters at Washington Barracks proved inadequate to house both complements of men. 

As a means of meeting the overflow, in April 1909 Company “C” was temporarily sent 

into camp on the high ridge of the western extremity of the new hospital grounds.26

The permanent buildings then on the reservation included Building No. 2, a double 

set of sergeant’s quarters, completed in April 1908, and the unoccupied Building 

No. 1, the Main or Administration building, completed in December of the same year. 

Both structures were of brick built on concrete foundations, with Georgia pine flooring 

with fireproof roofs, electric lighting, central heat and water and sewer connections.27

Building No. 3, a second double set of sergeant’s quarters was completed in March 1909, 

but to the tent-sheltered Company “C” roughing it on the ridge, these were domiciles 

of unknown luxury.

The standardization of medical supplies, usually an uninteresting subject to doctors 

until some defective product jeopardizes their techniques, first gained recognition 

through the efforts of the chemist, Major Carl R. Darnall (then professor of Chemistry and secretary of the new Army Medical School). Thus much of the early investigative program concerned laboratory experimentation and credit for the development 

for erection of a model military hospital “on a tract of land on the Brightwood Road 

due west from the Battle Cemetery. The officer of the Medical Department detailed to 

relieve Major Borden will have charge of the hospital when it is completed.”20

The peace-loving Surgeon General O’Reilly, who respected Major Borden’s “shrewdness and good judgment” and used his special abilities without stint, avoided unpleasant situations whenever possible. On the morning following public announcement of 

Borden’s military transfer, the Surgeon General, who anticipated an explosive outburst 

from the forthright doctor, was, according to Mrs. O’Reilly, unable to attend to his official duties.21 However, after due persuasion by some of his younger friends he appeared 

at the office as usual, offering to Major Borden, when he called, any other assignment 

than the Philippines.22 Such consideration may have been due to friendship or perhaps 

to the fact that the doctor required expert dental attention23 which may not have been 

available at a foreign station. With dignity and in the spirit of the true soldier, however, 

he refused a change of orders, sailing in the early autumn for the new station.24
80

V Borden’s Dream

Old Main

of one of the Army’s most efficient supply programs is rarely accorded the faculty of 

the Army Medical School. There were other things of importance besides drugs and 

hospital equipment, and rapid evacuation of the wounded was, like ready provisions of 

field supplies and equipment, a grave problem under combat conditions. Commercial 

development of steam-driven motors caused the Surgeon General to propose, in 1902, 

without subsequent favorable action by the Quartermaster, construction of a motor 

ambulance. Undiscouraged, in 1906, he recommended purchase of a steam-driven motor 

ambulance for experimental and testing purposes at Washington Barracks. Built by R. 

H. White of the White Sewing Machine Company, without expense to the government, 

the motor ambulance was used to supplement the escort wagons28 in shifting equipment 

and supplies from the old hospital to the new in May 1909.

Building No. 4, the combined Storehouse, Quartermaster and Commissary; Building 

No. 5, a stable with capacity for thirty-two animals, and Building No. 6, a wagon shed 

and garage, with capacity for twelve horse-drawn vehicles and three automobiles, were 

completed in January 1910.29 Lack of storage space resulted in the use of part of the old 

Lay Mansion, or Norway, at the southern end of the reservation, as a supply depot.30

The remaining part of the building was occupied by Charley Anderson, a “handy” civilian employee and his family.

Building No. 7, the Hospital Corps barracks, with capacity for 200 men, was completed in March 1910. The plan of assigning a field hospital company to the station for 

training purposes and demonstration of field equipment for the Army Medical School 

students resulted in a shortage of housing fully as unsatisfactory as conditions at Washington Barracks had been. Within two years Building No. 7 was entirely inadequate, and 
81

Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

the Surgeon General was complaining officially because part of the detachment was 

quartered in the attic of the hospital proper which “was not originally intended to be 

used as quarters and is but a makeshift.” It was, he said, “excessively hot in summer and 

illy ventilated in winter,”31 a circumstance personally subscribed to by later occupants, 

especially historians.

Buildings eight and nine, officers’ quarters, built to accommodate “one captain and 

his household,” were completed during the spring of 1910, and finally in August 1910, 

Building No. 10, a seventy-five foot iron flagstaff with concrete foundation, was erected 

in front of the Main Building.32 This last addition gave to the small group of colonial 

buildings the distinctive air of a military reservation, and it provided fun for pranksters 

who took an especial delight in sending bemused new recruits in search of a presumably 

formal architectural structure.

The main building, originally planned with bed capacity for only sixty-five patients,33 

consisted of three floors. The first floor accommodated the Commanding Officer, the 

Adjutant, the Officer of the Day,34 the Resident physician, Eye, Ear, and Throat, with 

no record of a “department for noses,” space for a future Dental Surgeon, clerks, a 

laboratory, waiting room, dining room, reception room, a dark room for X-ray work, 

the Library, which consisted of a small collection of professional books in the custody 

of the First Sergeant, and the various laboratories. The second floor provided space for 

a women’s ward, linen room, dining room, wards and convalescent wards and a nurse’s 

office, although there was no nurse (prison ward was located in basement). The third 

floor was given over largely to the operating room, instrument, sterilizing and recovery 

rooms, wards and other rooms with the specialized nomenclature characteristic of a 

modern hospital.35

When the Reorganization Bill, with authority for the Medical Reserve Corps, finally 

passed on April 23, 1908, and Army pay was increased as of the pay bill, Act of May 11, 

1908, a number of officers acknowledged the signs of prosperity by purchasing automobiles. The mysteries of the gasoline motor absorbed the thoughts of more than one 

Washingtonian, including the temperamental Lt. Colonel Arthur, whom the Surgeon 

General had detailed as Major Borden’s successor at President Theodore Roosevelt’s 

request.36 One member of the Ambulance Company was an especially proficient driver 

and gave lessons to some of the doctors. When Colonel Arthur complained bitterly 

over his ineptness in managing his run-about, the supply officer proposed having the 

ambulance driver assist in securing his license. With his usual unpredictability, Colonel 

Arthur assumed that he had been asked to have a soldier impersonate an officer when 

applying for the license. Roaring and rumbling, he personally reported the circumstance 

to the Surgeon General, demanding that his supply officer be court-martialed for his 

attempt to defraud the Government.37 Imperturbably, the Surgeon General sent him 

home to attend to more important professional affairs.

Colonel Arthur secured the license and learned to drive the run-about, which in those 

days he could park in front of Building No. 1 without fear of molestation from meddle-
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V Borden’s Dream

some military policemen. His sturdy little vehicle soon showed as much recalcitrant 

individuality as its owner. For on more than one occasion, as he cranked it vigorously, 

the little car got out of hand, and before being brought under control pursued the 

doctor as he fled down the slope toward Cameron’s Creek.38 Station assignment at the 

Walter Reed U.S. Army General Hospital was especially pleasant during the first two 

years. Opened in April 1909, there were then on duty five officers, sixty-two enlisted 

men of the Hospital Corps and four civilian employees. Of the four civilians one was 

the “handy” carpenter residing in the Lay House, one was the Post engineer, one a cook 

and the fourth was the hospital matron. Company “C” of the Hospital Corps, which 

occupied the barracks, had one officer and eighty-two enlisted men and constituted a 

“Field Hospital Unit.” Although Company “C” was attached to the station primarily for 

the field medical training of Army Medical School students, it was fiscally supported 

from the hospital budget.39

Only five officers, eleven enlisted men, two retired enlisted men and one civilian had 

received treatment at the end of the first thirty‐day accounting period. It was not a fixed 

policy of the Medical Department to send patients long distances for hospitalization, 

nor were travel funds available had the Surgeon General believed this a necessity. Medical officers assigned to station or Post hospitals had general training, were self-reliant 

and not only wanted but were expected to treat the sick. Under the circumstances, 

professional activities at Walter Reed were not too strenuous, and during the humid 

summer months the customary halfday tropical schedule was maintained. Some of the 

officers used the additional leisure time to good advantage, for the ravine crest made 

an excellent location for teeing-off golf balls; the ensuing scramble for recovery amidst 

the underbush of the ravine provided exercise of a special sort.40

Many of Washington’s principal avenues were being named for the states, and by 1909 

an irate Senator from Georgia, successful in his plea for “states’ rights,” suc-ceeded in 

having the historic Seventh Street Road, otherwise Brightwood Avenue, appropriately 

renamed. In spite of the transportation afforded by the direct streetcar line to the city, 

and Colonel Arthur’s run-about, the Walter Reed reservation was still an isolated rural 

post.

Public officials in Washington were governed by rigid protocol. Leaving cards at the 

White House and at the home of the Secretary of War was a “must.” These were the 

days when high-ranking Army officers were a curiosity; when Colonels were important, when good manners and good breeding were the characteristic rather than the 

afterthought. If medical officers in these early days of the century were selected for 

their cultural as well as professional background, their wives were no less important to 

their military careers. “At homes” were held on specified days, and white-gloved, parasol-equipped ladies arrived by carriage for afternoon tea and visiting. Mrs. Arthur was 

talented, agreeable and sociable, and she met her responsibilities to younger officers’ 

wives with charm.41
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Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

How Times Have Changed!

There is some difference in the recorded statements concerning the bed-size of the 

new hospital. The original history, written in 1921, listed the number at sixty-five in 

1909. The Surgeon General’s Annual Report, based on the fiscal year, listed eighty beds, 

noting that places were available for women requiring hospital treatment or surgical 

operation.42 As a professional institution Walter Reed was immediately successful and 

the building was hardly occupied before the Surgeon General, or possibly Colonel Arthur, 

proposed securing an additional eighteen acres of land to the west, thus providing an 

entrance on the-soon-to-be-extended Fourteenth Street. Purchase of additional acreage would not only provide high ground but would prevent the crowding of buildings 

in the northeast corner of the plot, making “it possible to keep out of sight from the 

main street the necessary administrative buildings such as stables, storehouses, power 

houses etc., and... allow spaces for a hospital garden, dairy and laundry.”43

Concealing the presence of Building No. 5, a stable with accommodation for thirtytwo animals was doubtless more than an aesthetic problem. Interestingly, by the fiscal 

accounting of 1911, there were 565 patients with the total expenditure listed at $27,381.79. 

Moreover, the animals were undoubtedly costlier in some respects than the patients, for 

even two years later the amount of monies expended for the purchase of non-issuable 

Medical Supplies totaled only $1,156.66, while Dr. Paul Halloran, the Post Quartermaster, 

paid out $3,875.04 to provide bran, hay, oats and straw44 for the four-footed “beasties.”

Sergeant Newport had moved from the Barracks to the hospital, occupying one of the 

double sets of stewards’ quarters, enveloped nearly forty years later by the Eye Clinic. 

A sensitive as well as a forward-looking man, Sergeant Newport planted a catalpa tree 

outside his door in celebration of the birth of his son, Georgie. No doubt he deplored 

the proximity of the stables, and perhaps even the barracks. With all the spartan qualities of the responsible non-commissioned officer, pride in the conduct of the men of 

his organization caused him to regret extension of the streetcar line from Brightwood 

Village, for the one-mile walk to the Post tended to sober inebriated soldiers before 

they reached the Post45 — and fell into Sergeant Newport’s unsympathetic hands. This 

was, of course, a less strenuous way of sobering drunks than Arthur had employed at 

Vancouver Barracks in 1896, but there is no record to prove that the Colonel had mellowed to the point of evaluating a brisk walk in the fresh air as more effective than the 

stomach pump and cayenne pepper.

Sergeant Newport was not the only member of the command with homesteading 

instincts, and the hospital reservation was undergoing its first real landscaping. One 

hundred thirty-five Norway maples were planted; hedges were set along the entire 

length of Georgia Avenue and around the officers’ and non-commissioned officers’ 

quarters. Lawns were made, graded and drained; bushes and flowering shrubs were 

planted; roads were repaired and maintained; and five arc lights were replaced by fifteen 

incandescent street lamps. “Practically all of these improvements were effected by the 
84

V Borden’s Dream

Enter: The Women!

Col. Arthur, like the other physicians of 

his day, took seriously the Florence Nightingale mandate on nurses: “Nurses are not 

‘medical men’,” she wrote to Dr. W.G. Wylie 

in 1872. “On the contrary, the nurses are 

there, and solely there, to carry out the orders of the medical and surgical staff.... ”47

But wherever else they were, nurses were 

not at Walter Reed in 1909. Col. Arthur’s 

mighty wrath over the 1902 strike in the 

Philippines had cooled somewhat, but he 

was still reluctant to accept female nurses, 

for, being women, they were not subject to 

the rough and ready military discipline.

Such was the intrepid doctor’s influence 

on younger officers that many of them 

shared his skepticism and dislike, and even 

the nurses believed that he flatly refused to accept the distaff branch. According to 

the possibly embellished legend, Col. Arthur was standing by the elevator cage on the 

second floor of the hospital when the ten-dollar-a-month matron reported off duty. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the viewpoint, her suitcase fell open at 

his feet, disclosing an Army blanket, government property, being removed from the 

military reservation.48 The horrible fact that civilian employees could or would purloin 

his supplies presumably brought a complete change of heart in regard to quasi-military 

female personnel. According to the Surgeon General’s less colorful but doubtless more 

factual record, failure to have female nurses at Walter Reed was a simple case of logistics. A great deal of essential construction was necessary; funds were limited; quarters 

for nurses were not built until 1911.

Prior to the opening of the nurses’ residence, on the main drive and facing the Commanding Officer’s quarters, all newly appointed nurses in the Army Nurse Corps received 

preliminary orientation at the Presidio.49 This was a costly arrangement, for some nurses 

made the long trip from the East only to be found unsuitable for military service. Others 

were disappointed and wanted to return home. The Superintendent of the Army Nurse 

Corps, aware of the uncertain military position of her charges, favored establishing an orientation course at Walter Reed, where all new appointees would come under her watchful 

eye for screening.50 This was an important concession, and the preparation for receiving 

nurses at Walter Reed moved the conservative American Journal of Nursing to report:

labor of troops,”46 reported the hospital commander. It is a small wonder, therefore, 

that the animals foraged more heavily or that the Troop Command may have tippled 

more lustily than usual, for both were working with unaccustomed vigor.

William H. Arthur, Commanding Officer, 

June 1, 1908–July 11, 1911
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Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

The location is most attractive, with ample grounds and wooded hills in 

the distance, but easily accessible, being directly on a car line. The house 

is commodious, admiral in architecture, with open fire places and wide 

verandas.... It is hoped that all newly appointed nurses may spend a few 

months at Walter Reed Hospital, receiving there special instruction in the 

organization and discipline of military hospitals and the duties peculiar 

to the service of the Army Nurse Corps.51

Innocent of any irony, the Surgeon General’s Annual Report for 1911 merely noted that 

“a building for quarters for nurses (Building No. 12) of the Army Nurse Corps to accommodate 20 nurses had been constructed and was ready for occupancy June 1, 1911.”52

The stately Jane A. Delano was Superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps at the time. 

Of powerful influence in the young but rapidly enlarging national nursing organizations, 

Miss Delano was likewise a personal friend of Kean’s and secured through his support 

many concessions favorable to the nurses.53 Selecting the first Chief Nurse for so exacting a commander was not an easy matter, and the legend that surrounds Jane Molloy’s 

assignment to Walter Reed is as ripe with colorful interpretation as Colonel Arthur’s 

own story. A petite little person who, like many of her generation, studied nursing in 

order to be of service to humanity, Jane Molloy was in her quiet way an even match for 

the fiery Colonel. “I was chosen,” she said emphatically, “because I could handle him.” 

Reserved, dignified, well educated and cultured, Jane Molloy kept tight rein on the 

thirteen nurses remaining on duty at Walter Reed at the end of the year 1911, a number 

then adequate to meet institutional needs.

Acceptance of the women nurses marked a forward stride in the doctor-training 

program as the admission of female patients insured broader clinical resources. In 

spite of her special qualifications for managing recalcitrant Colonels, Jane Molloy had 

other problems to meet. It was still the era in nursing when many directors combined 

the characteristics of supervisor, Mother Superior and warden in the discharge of their 

obligations. And at Walter Reed more than one young nurse who too long lingered on 

the ward at the noon hour found the double doors to the nurses’ dining room closed in 

her face 54 — or Miss Molloy grimly rocking on the front porch. Exacting in her requirements and particular of small details, some not only believed she was eccentric but that 

she failed to fight aggressively for the nurses. Detached and objective, she was refined, 

scholarly and progressive.55 She preferred, therefore, woman’s usual weapon — oblique 

strategy rather than outright defiance.

Marketing for the nurses’ food service, or mess as it was called in those days, 

was a real problem, for the women found the heavy standardized military ration 

distasteful, preferring salads and other delicacies which the troops disdained. The 

Army ration had a cash value, raised from thirty to forty cents for the Army Nurse 

Corps of 1911, but even this increase did not ease the budgetary problem. It was 
86

V Borden’s Dream

some months before Miss Molloy learned to her chagrin that in exchanging surplus 

ration commodities with the Commissary Sergeant she invariably got the short end of 

the financial arrangement, the wily Sergeant crediting her with the cost of lower priced 

items and charging for the higher, the profit to be applied to improving the meals served 

his own personnel. Green groceries and delicacies were procured in the city, and with 

market basket on her arm the Chief Nurse made the long trip by street car several times 

each week. Afternoon tea and dainty cakes were provided for her tired charges whenever funds were available, but this was not a standing arrangement, for the “tea fund” 

accumulated only from ten cent fines imposed on young ladies reporting on duty with 

their petticoats hanging below their uniform skirt.56

The Army Nurse Corps uniform of the period consisted of a waist, belt and skirt of 

suitable white material, a bishop collar and white cap made to the Surgeon General’s 

specifications. Their insignia consisted of a gold or gilt caduceus superimposed on the 

white enameled letters ANC. A government issue of women’s clothing was unheard of, 

and the nurses considered themselves lucky to have their hospital uniforms laundered 

at government expense.

Miss Molloy had an insatiable taste, which she called an addiction, for Blackstone’s Commentaries and foreign travel. The first she satisfied by reading and the 

One of the young Anderson boys surveys a future Sunday dinner for the Walter Reed patients.
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Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

second by “long and frequent vacations.” As individualistic as Colonel Arthur, a 

legendary story credits her with meeting inclement weather with fortitude. For, as 

the story goes, she negotiated the muddy path between the nurses’ residence and 

the hospital wearing high-buttoned yellow shoes and a soldier’s campaign hat.57

It is more probably, however, that to this frail, detached,58 blue-eyed little woman 

who “early came under Mohammedan influence”59 has been credited the flash of 

gaily stockinged leg as some young charge climbed aboard the escort wagon which 

called for the nurses in bad weather. Without doubt the long trailing skirts of the 

day concealed many physical defects and the Medical Department established no 

regulations on either bootery or calf. Sedate and decorous as to outward appearances, the distaff branch compensated for their sober professional mien by wearing 

a garden-variety of pastel stockings.60

Ironically, the preparations for psychological warfare between the commanding 

officer and the first Chief Nurse were wasted. Like Doctor Borden, Walter Reed’s 

second commander had served his day in the sacred shadow of the Capitol. The first 

nurses arrived on June 21, 1911; on July 11, Colonel Arthur began his final leave before 

reassignment in the Philippines. During the two-month interim prior to the arrival 

of his quiet and unimpressive successor,61 Colonel Charles Richard, administrative 

affairs at the little hospital were apparently managed by the executive officer.

Any successor to the stentorian, irascible Arthur would seem colorless in comparison, for of the nineteen men who by accident or design commanded the U.S. 

Army General Hospital after 1898, Arthur was recalled with the greatest affection 

and uniformity of opinion as the one indomitable individualist. Richards was then 

fifty-seven years old and although his professional background was impeccable,62

he had commanded nothing more spectacular than a hospital train during the brief 

war with Spain. Called a pleasant “old duffer” by some of his contemporaries63

and irascible and cantankerous by others,64 on the whole he was considered a 

good administrator and if not progressive he was at least not destructive. Small, 

quiet-appearing,65 even “mousey,”66 he was apparently an unexceptional surgeon 

but an able administrator as some considered him the “wheelhorse” of the Surgeon 

General’s Office during World War I. As is often the case with quiet people, some 

mistakenly believed that he lacked interest in other people.67

His wife was inclined to be shy;68 thus the combination of two quiet personalities 

resulted in criticism of the retiring69 Richardses who “did not hold their end up.”70

Some of his associates considered the little doctor’s unchanging manner a tribute 

to the solid standards of respectability characteristic of the medical officers of 

the “old school” type.71 Small, neat and of unusual “military bearing” for a doctor, 

Colonel Richard was, surprisingly, a bit on the “saucy” side of good manners.72 He 

not only swore energetically on occasion, but through the years he had acquired 

the reputation for having the best “vocabulary” of any doctor in the Corps,73 a 

definition of vocabulary which students of semantics might deplore.
88

V Borden’s Dream

On Seventh Street South

 The work of the Yellow Fever Board brought prestige as well as increased responsibilities to Army medical officers. By 1903, when Walter Reed hospital was opened to 

patients, Colonel W.C. Gorgas had been five years in Panama as sanitary officer for the 

canal project. Among his assistants, three, Lt. Colonel John L. Phillips, Major Charles 

F. Mason and Captain Robert E. Noble are of interest in the hospital story. Major J.R. 

Kean was again in Cuba as sanitary officer but exercising his usual judicious influence 

over corps affairs.74

Colonel Valery Havard was then completing his third year as president of the Army 

Medical School faculty. In 1904 he had prepared a paper for the Military Surgeon on 

venereal disease,75 the ever-present plague of Army commanders. By 1909 he had written 

a textbook which applied “in a practical manner for military use the latest advances in 

preventive medicine and the results of the author’s wide experience during thirty-eight 

years of service.”76 The photographic-minded Walter Drew McCaw had succeeded the 

more military Colonel Calvin DeWitt as librarian of the Army Medical Library in 1908, 

and would remain in that capacity for nine years. An intellectual and humorous man, 

he was an omnivorous reader but produced less original writing than might have been 

expected of one of his capabilities.77

Concurrently, Percy M. Ashburn was achieving modest recognition for preparing a 

manual in “an attractive style for nonprofessional readers.” Charles F. Mason’s revised 

edition of the Handbook for the Hospital Corps was off the press, and Charles Lynch, by 

then detailed as liaison to the American National Red Cross, was writing brochures 

on first-aid and relief work. Of two men destined to bring great professional distinction to the Army Medical School, little was said. Charles F. Craig, interested in Malta 

Fevers as early as 1904, was in 1909_1910 writing energetically on mosquito-borne 

fevers. Captain F.F. Russell, interested in anti-malarial work in 1904, was listed only as 

the School’s professor of clinical microscopy and bacteriology, having succeeded the 

recently deceased James Carroll. He was, however, junior member of a Board of officers 

which recommended voluntary vaccination against typhoid fever.78

Captain Russell’s scientific star was in the ascendancy, for in 1908 he was the Surgeon 

General’s emissary in Europe to investigate the bacterial prophylaxis against typhoid fever 

in European services. The method proposed for the United States was primarily a modification of the earlier work of an English doctor, Sir Almroth E. Wright. Capt. Russell not 

only returned home with some of the European bacterial cultures, for the laboratory staff 

at the School to study, but the School began the manufacture of vaccine which “by February 1909, ...was ready for issue.... ”79 As in the case of many other untried therapeutic 

measures, there was no sudden stampede by applicants anxious for inoculation.80

H.P. Birmingham had a short tour of duty as Post Surgeon at Washington Barracks during 

these early years. Conscientious, determined and subscribing to high professional standards 

for his Corps, he let nothing interfere with the proper discharge of his “duty.” 81
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Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

In March and September, therefore, Russell not only immunized Majors Ireland and 

Kean but also the Ireland, Kean, and Birmingham wives and children,82 for it seemed 

necessary to encourage the recruits with examples of innocent martyrdom. The entire 

class of the Army Medical School likewise faced the ordeal bravely, and by the end of the 

year the Surgeon General was able to report that 830 immunizations had been given.83 

Such is the effect of noble example that the director of the French Army Medical Service 

cited the fortitude of the American women and children as a stimulus to his officers.84

In 1910, the Army Medical School moved from its cramped quarters in the LibraryMuseum building to the six-storied building at 721 Thirteenth Street, known as the 

Builder’s Exchange and later occupied by the Sloan auctioneers. The fourth floor was 

given over almost entirely to the bacteriological department, comfortably arranged so 

that sixty students could be instructed simultaneously rather than in sections as formerly. Captains Charles F. Craig and Henry J. Nichols assisted Major Russell with his 

work on the bacteriological and serum diagnosis of diseases, typhoid fever, dysentery, 

cholera and diphtheria receiving special attention.85

Russell’s work with typhoid fever vaccine had placed the United States far ahead of 

other countries, and the Surgeon General was naturally anxious to apply the principle 

A Theory Put to the Test; Major F.F. Russell vaccinating recruits
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V Borden’s Dream

of immunization in order to reduce the non-effective rate from this cause. Major General Frederick C. Ainsworth was still the Adjutant General86 and though usually rather 

sympathetic to Medical Department problems he considered it within his administrative province to oppose compulsory vaccination of the troops. He not only demanded 

a precedent from continental armies but withheld his consent on the grounds of 

expediency. As if to clinch the argument he voiced his own personal opinion that the 

anti-vivisectionists “would make a great row over it and the War Department would 

back down.”87 Under the approved general staff organization, the Adjutant General was 

the record keeper of the Army, not, as the Ainsworth interpretation would have it, the 

final voice of authority. A brother medical officer, Leonard Wood, was made Chief of 

Staff in 1910. When General Ainsworth attempted to usurp General Wood’s military 

prerogatives, the resulting personal feud between the doctor-administrators reached 

proportions unparalleled in Medical Department history.88

In March 1911, at about the time the mortuary, Building No. 11, was being completed 

at Walter Reed, the War Department ordered mobilized at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, 

an Infantry Division and a brigade of Calvary. The Surgeon General was directed to 

assemble medical units to support this reinforced organization, called a “maneuver 

camp,” but obviously intended for ready action against Mexico. Colonel Birmingham 

became the Division Surgeon,89 and the forty-nine qualified Army Medical School students were graduated on March 20, two months earlier than usual, as the field work was 

considered of more value than the remaining weeks of formal instruction.90 The Chief 

of Staff consented to vaccination of the entire military command, apparently prior to a 

request from the field commander, General Carter, for this measure. “In this way,” said 

Kean, “the maneuver Division became a test on a large scale of typhoid vaccinations 

with only one unvaccinated teamster succumbing to typhoid.” 91

Colonel Arthur was still at Walter Reed during the early part of the year and mourning 

the fact that he could neither quarter all of his officers and men on the reservation nor 

provide a suitable recreation room for “an organization like the Field Hospital, which 

is largely composed of recruits.” He found, however, that part of his problem melted 

away on March 9, when Company “C” of the Hospital Corps, three officers and ninetynine enlisted men, with the impediments of Field Hospital Number 3 and Ambulance 

Company Number 3, departed for the south. The mobilization was short-lived and on 

April 17, 1911, the Secretary of War declared the emergency over. Company “C” was 

therefore reassigned, but not at Walter Reed.92

Some eight months after the Surgeon General proposed routine vaccination of all 

troops, as a part of the mobilization plan, and the Adjutant General aborted the decision, the matter was reopened. General Wood was known for his lack of partiality to 

the Medical Department,93 but on October 7, 1911, all officers and men under forty-five 

were required by War Department order to be vaccinated.94

Studies on the epidemiology of typhoid fever had aroused interest in water purification, and in 1910 Major Darnall devised apparatus for purifying drinking water with 
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Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

chlorine gas, later improved for the use of liquid chlorine.95 This was a public health 

measure of the greatest importance and like vaccinations and venereal disease control, 

of national rather than purely military significance.

Epidemics, alcohol and venereal disease were the medical officers’ time-resistant and 

historic enemies. Troop education was practically the only means of controlling the noneffective rate for the latter causes, and these man-made problems created incalculable 

medical, military and social costs. Captain Henry Nichols is especially deserving of recognition, for through his work with yaws-infected rabbits brought from the Philippines 

he was the first physician in the United States to try a specific treatment for syphilis. 

While he was on a later trip to Europe, Erhlich not only encouraged him to go ahead 

with this work but presented him with the first “606” or salvarsan ever brought to the 

United States, thus enabling the laboratory instructors of the Army Medical School to 

proceed with this monumental research problem.96

The clinical investigation of syphilis was limited for lack of time in 1909, but in 1910, 

the Surgeon General issued a circular letter on the use of “606.” The venereal disease 

studies were again pursued vigorously in 1911, with the cases for study secured from 

nearby garrisons and treated at Walter Reed.97 Serology was receiving more careful 

attention, and because of the increased interest in tropical diseases, protozoology. An 

increasing amount of time was devoted to X-ray work,98 and courses in ophthalmology 

and optometry were changed from the didactic to the practical.99

Subjoining the School and Hospital

Among the permanent commissioned personnel assigned to Walter Reed in 1912, 

there were: one Colonel; two Majors; two Captains and one First Lieutenant, with an 

additional Major carried on a detached service status. The small staff of School and 

hospital, and the limited amount of operating funds for each, encouraged continuation 

of the interchangeable professional assignments which had permitted the School to 

survive lean budgetary years. While hospital administrative problems were essentially 

local, and the School program was departmental, the two were complementary. Functionally, both involved the Hospital Corps, without which the Medical Service could 

not operate in peace or war. The caliber of the corpsmen then enlisting was believed 

to be no better and rarely as good as the average line recruit; the authorized manpower 

strength was insufficient; attrition was heavy. The Army had always attempted to find 

satisfactory psychological excuses to justify the citizens’ basic dislike for regimented 

military service. Thus the Medical Department had felt justified in encouraging proportionately higher pay for corpsmen as compensation for performing unattractive hospital 

tasks. Nevertheless, the Surgeon General was still finding in 1912 that even monetary 

inducements could not keep manpower availability and effective strength apace of the 

requirements of a growing medical service.

The local situation at Walter Reed was a telling example. A peacetime detachment was 

necessary for maintenance of the buildings grounds and performance of minor admin-
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V Borden’s Dream

istrative duties. The plant was growing 

rapidly, and the inpatient census was 

increasing, with 687 patients admitted to 

the two services of medicine and surgery 

during the year.100 Corpsmen were performing fewer nursing duties than at any 

time since the general hospital opened in 

1898, for by the end of the calendar year 

seventeen graduate female nurses were 

on duty. Of this number one nurse served 

as chief and housekeeper; six each were 

assigned to the officers’ ward and enlisted 

wards; three to the operating room and 

one as dietitian.101 Still, the assignment of 

female nurses encouraged the admission 

of female patients and dependents, so by 

and large there was more to do. Whereas 

122 more patients were admitted in 1912 

than in 1911, the laboratory examinations 

increased by 6,271 procedures. The most 

noticeable increases concerned urinalyses, malaria, sputum and feces examinations, and all of these reflected the line of 

investigation being pursued so vigorously 

at the School. 

In spite of the increase in patients, only two enlisted men were assigned to day 

ward nursing duty; three to night duty; four as Wardmaster; one to the operating 

room and one to the laboratory. When the Hospital Company moved from the 

unsuitable attic, over the operating room, to the modern new barracks formerly 

occupied by Field Hospital No. 3, all other possible conveniences and inducements 

were provided for the corpsmen. In spite of the physical comforts, the Hospital 

Company continued to be so depleted of men due to expiration of term of service, 

discharge by purchase etc., 

... as to make it difficult to properly care for the public animals, police 

and care for the grounds and attend to the various duties necessary 

for the proper up keep of a military post which this hospital, aside 

from the primary one for caring for the sick, essentially is.

Metropolitan area patients were transferred to the hospital by automobile 

ambulances, whose general usage was then increasing, but there were few other 

signs that a mechanized era was dawning. Horse-drawn vehicles were used for post 

The Army Medical School, 721 Thirteenth Street, 

N.W., 1910 
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Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

Painting, Brigadier General Charles Richard

service functions — commissary deliveries, ice, the custodial work of buildings and 

grounds. As a result, animal maintenance was costly and the Post Quartermaster 

expended more for forage than for nonstandard medical supplies procurable by 

purchase.102

By Special Orders No. 156, War Department, July 3, 1912, Colonel Richard relieved 

Colonel Louis A. La Garde as instructor in military surgery at the Army Medical 

School. By Special Order No. 12, August 26, he succeeded him as Commandant. 

According to the official hospital record, the quiet little Doctor Richards, whom his 

contemporaries recall as a man of military bearing and colorful vocabulary, served 

at Walter Reed for a year and a day,103 long enough to be the probable proponent 

of a recommendation regarding 
94

V Borden’s Dream

... the desirability of building quarters at (the) hospital for the student officers 

in attendance at the Army Medical School, whereby they could be placed in a 

proper military environment at the beginning or formative period in their military 

careers at which time the inculcation of discipline and the forming of proper 

military habits is so essential. In addition they would have the advantage afforded in a medical and administrative way by this large hospital and all this 

could be done with a decided pecuniary saving to the government.104

A quiet, thoughtful man, Colonel Richards undoubtedly figured the $8,680.00 annual rent 

expended for housing the Army Medical School could as well be applied to a capital investment.105 He was three years at the Army Medical School, after which assignment he followed 

the course of so many of his predecessors, becoming commanding officer of the Division 

Hospital in Manila. With the versatility expected of the medical officers of his day, he subsequently served at the Medical Supply Depot, New York Port of Embarkation, and, as noted, 

during World War I, in the Surgeon General’s Office, from which he retired November 10, 

1918. In writing his obituary, following his death at the age of 86, The Military Surgeon noted 

that Charles Richards was “a gentle and courteous man of retiring disposition, who brought 

industry and high intelligence to every duty he was called upon to perform.” 106

References

1. Editorial, Military Surgeon, February 1910, pg 375.

2. Annual Rpt TSG... 1906, pg 120. 

3. Ibid, pg 38.

4. Ibid, pg 21. 

5. Ibid, pg 116.

6. Ibid, pg 118.

7. Ibid, 1907, pg 125.

8. Ibid, 1908, pg 62.

9. Ibid, 1907, pg 119.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid, pg 122.

12. Ibid, pg 121-123. 

13. Ltr from Col. James D. Fife, M.C., Ret., to the writer, Jan. 11, 1951.
95

Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

14. Scrapbook of Wm. Cline Borden, containing papers and records of his military service. Jan. 

2, 1903 to NY; Aug. 19, 1903 to Ft. Bayard, N.M., & Presidio etc.

15. MSS of Brig. Gen. Jefferson R. Kean, pg 97; Ltr from acting AG, W.P. Hall, to Col. Clarence 

Edwards (cc) named Bd. of Officers, Oct. 12, 1903, composed of Edwards, Chf. Bureau of 

Insular Affairs; Borden for TSG; and Capt. Chancey B. Baker, QM, to ascertain a suitable 

location within DC but without committing U.S. either for final purchase or for any expense 

of option. Copy in Borden’s Scrapbook.

16. The Washington Evening Star, April 4, 1907.

17. Interview with Col. Herbert N. Dean, MAC, Ret., April 12, 1950.

18. Interview with Daniel L. Borden, M.D., Jan. 7, 1951. 

19. WD SO #75, Borden’s Scrapbook. (“A True Copy”). 

20. The Washington Evening Star, op cit. 

21. Interview with Brig. Gen. Albert G. Love, Ret., April 5, 1950.

22. Interview with Daniel L. Borden, Jan. 7, 1951.

23. Ltr Wm. Cline Borden, Maj. Surgeon to TSG, April 20, 1907. Copy in Borden’s Scrapbook.

24. WD Spec. Orders #75, April 1, 1907. Copy in Borden’s Scrapbook. 

25. “Phillips Ousted as Medical Dean... Succeeded by Borden,” Washington Star, Wednesday, 

May 19, 1909. 

26. Annual Rpt... 1909, pg 130; interview with Maj. Gen. Robert U. Patterson, Ret., Aug. 24, 

29, 1950, who accompanied the group as a Lieutenant.

27. Med. Dept. of the U.S. Army in the World War, Military Hospitals in the United States, Vol. V, 

pg 274; original manuscript, Hist. of WRGH, prep. In 1921, on file Library, WRAH. 

28. SGO 3501 — Ambulance (Washington Barracks, D.C.) Correspondence 21 March 1902 

(quoted) War Rec. Div., Nat’l Archives; See also 1904-1915.

29. WR MSS, op cit, pg 8, 9. 

30. Interview with Col. John Huggins, MC., Ret., April 20, 1950. 

31. Annual Rpt TSG... 1912, pg 156. 

32. WR MSS, op cit, pg 13. 

33. Ibid, pg 7. 

34. The small room immediately to the right of the main entrance, presently used as a telegraph office.
96

V Borden’s Dream

35. Ibid.

36. Interview with Brig. Gen. Jefferson R. Kean, M.C., Ret., April 17, 1950.

37. Interview with Colonel John Huggins, M.C., Ret., April 20, 1950. 

38. Ibid. 

39. Med. Dept..., Vol. V, pg 277, 278. 

40. Interview with Colonel James F. Hall, M.C., Ret., April 17, 1950; August 8, 1951. 

41. Interviews with Miss Anne Halloran, April 19, 1950; Mrs. Mathew Reasoner, April 17, 

1950; Mrs. M.W. Ireland, April 14, 1950. 

42. Annual Rpt TSG... 1909, pg 140. 

43. Ibid. 

44. Annual Rpt WRGH, 1911, (cc).

45. Dean interview, op cit.

46. Annual Rpt TSG... 1912, pg 156. 

47. Ltr frm Florence Nightingale to Dr. W.G. Wylie, representing the founders of Bellevue 

(School of Nursing) in 1872, and originally presented in the report of the committee on 

Hospitals of the NY State Charities Aid Association, Dec. 23, 1872. 

48. Interviews with Col. James F. Hall, MC Ret., April 17, 1950; Col. John Huggins, M.C., 

Ret., April 20, 1950; Maj. Gen. Morrison C. Stayer, M.C., Ret., June 10, 1950. All of these 

officers were assigned to Walter Reed within the first year of operation; WR MSS, pg 20. 

Interview with Miss Jane Molloy, first CN,WRGH, June 30, 1950; Interview with Miss 

Dora Thompson, former Supt. ANC, June 26, 1950. 

49. American Jrn. of Nursing, Vol. 12, 1911/12, pg 240. 

50. Annual Rpt TSG... 1911, pg 172. 

51. American Jrn. of Nursing, Vol. 11, 1910/11, pg 654. 

52. Annual Rpt TSG... 1911. 

53. See Organized Nursing and the Army in Three Wars, MSS on file HD, SGO. 

54. Interview with Lt. Col. Jessie M. Braden, ANC Ret., June 26, 1950; Interview with Lt. Col. 

Ida W. Danielson, Chf. Nurse, WRAH, June 7, 1950. 

55. Interview with First Lt. Florence Baily, ANC, Ret., June 25, 1950.

56. Braden interview, op cit; Molloy interview op cit. 
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Professional Training for Medical Personnel V

57. Telephone conversation with Lt. Col. Nellie Close, ANC, Ret., June 1950. 

58. Interview with Major Sara M. Schoenberger, ANC, Ret., June 26, 1950. 

59. Molloy interview, op cit. 

60. Interview with Lt. Col. Lydia M. Keener, ANC, Ret., former Chief Nurse, WRGH, June 28, 1950. 

61. Halloran interview, op cit. 

62. Obituary, “Charles Richard,” Military Surgeon, Vol. 86, June 1940, pg 617. 

63. Kean interview, April 17, 1950. 

64. Conversation with Brig. Gen. George C. Callander, M.C., Ret., Feb. 22, 1951. 

65. Interview with Maj. Gen. Morrison C. Stayer, M.C., Ret., June 10, 1950. 

66. Interview with Colonel Mathew W. Phalen, M.C., Ret., April 19, 1950.

67. Interview with Brig. Gen. Frank Keefer, M.C., Ret., April 20, 1950. 

68. Reasoner interview, op cit. 

69. Interview with Colonel James D. Fife, M.C., Ret., May 26, 1950. 

70. Reasoner interview, op cit. 

71. Stayer interview, op cit. 

72. Keefer interview, op cit. 

73. Stayer intervier, op cit. 

74. Biography of General J.R. Kean, MSS on file AML, Washington, D.C. 

75. “The Value of Statistics in Connection with Venereal Diseases in the Army and Navy,” 

(quoted) Edgar Erskine Hume, A History of Our First Half Century, 1891_1941, pub. by Ass. 

Military Surgeon, 1941, pg 39. 

76. Annual Rpt TSG... 1909, pg 136; Manual of Military Hygiene For the Military Services of the 

United States. 

77. Ltr H.W. Jones, M.C., Ret. to writer, Aug. 2, 1951.

78. S.O. #279, W.D. 1 Dec. 1908; G.O. #10, W.D. 21 Jan. 1909. 

79. Ahsburn, op cit, pg 273. 

80. Dean interview, op cit. 
98

V Borden’s Dream

81. Based on interviews, see later chapter. 

82. Kean, op cit, pg 124; Interview with Mrs. J.R. Kean. 

83. Ashburn, loc cit. 

84. Kean, loc cit. 

85. Minutes... Fifteenth Session, AMS on file AMS, AMC; Annual Report... TSG, 1910, pg 132. 

86. Known as Mil. Secy. from April 23, 1904 – March 2, 1907.

87. Kean, op cit, pg. 137. 

88. Otto L. Nelson... Chp. IV, pg 73–184. 

89. Kean, op cit, pg 140. 

90. Minutes... Fifteenth Session, op cit. 

91. Kean, loc cit. 

92. Annual Rpt. WRGH, 1911. 

93. Kean, op cit, pg 139; Ashburn, op cit, pg 249, 250. 

94. Kean, op cit, pg 143. 

95. Army Medical Bulletin No. 46, October 1938, pg 1, et seq. 

96. Love interview, op cit. 

97. Annual Rpt TSG... 1911, pg 160. 

98. Ibid, 1912, pg 174. 

99. Ibid, pg 184. 

100. Annual Rpt WRGH, 1912. 

101. Annual Rpt WRGH, 1912. 

102. $2,688.42 for forage, oats and straw and $858.08 for nonstandard medicine; Annual Rpt 

WRGH, 1912. 

103. Records of service dates provided by Historical Division, SGO. 

104. Annual Rpt. WRGH, 1912. 

105. Annual Rpt.... TSG, 1914, pg 177. 

106. Military Surgeon, Vol. 86, June 1940, pg 617.