Weekly journal-miner., 1917-10-03
LOCAL POST MAY BE USED AS A
 HOSPITAL
FIT. WHIPPLE CONSIDERED AN IDEAL SITE FOR ONE OF BIG CONSTRUCTION UNITS PROPOSED BY U. S. FOR ITS SOLDIERS.
(From Sundays Daily)

Re-educating the crippled and maimed soldiers from the battlehelds of France to new lines of work and turning them back to private life as useful men again is to be the work of the reconstruction hospitals to be es- tablished in the United States and for which purpose Fort Whipple barracks has been suggested to the government by Governor Thomas E. Campbell. Several sites already have been select ed for these hospitals by Major Gen eral William C. Gorgas, surgeon gen craI of the army, who has made the following statement regarding the work:
 The whole conception of govern mental and national responsibility for caring for the wounded has undergone radical change during the months ot study given the subject by experts serving with the medical officers re- serve corps and others consulting with them. Instead of the old idea that responsibility ended with the re- turn of the soldier to private lite with his wounds healed and such pension as he might be given, it is now con sidered that it is the duty of the gov crrment to equip and re-educate the wounded man, after healing his wounds, and to return him to civil life ready to be useful to himself and his country.
 'To carry out this idea plans are well under way for building recon struction hospitals, several sites for which already have been chosen, but not finally approved. Each will be built as a 500-bed hospital, but with provision for enlargement to 1000 beds if needed
 "These hospitals will not be the last step in the return of the wounded sol dicrs to civil life When the soldiers arc able to take Up industrial train ing. further provision will be ready. The injured man may be re-trained to his previous occupation to conform with his handicapped condition or re. trained for a new industry, com patible with that condition. Addition al education will be given those fitted for 1t, and men may in some cases be turned to more valuable work than that from which they were called to war Workshops will be provided at the hospitals, but arrangements will also be made with outside industries whereby more elaborate methods of training may be carried on. An em- pIoyment bureau will be established to place men so trained in different parts of the United States.
 Arrangements have been made by the departments of military orthope dies (thc prevention of deformity) tc care for soldiers, so far as orthopedics is concerned, continuously, until they are returned either to active service or civil life. Orthopcdic surgeons will be attached to the medical force near the firing line and to the differ cnt hospitals back to the base ortho- pcdic hospital which will be estab- lishcd within 100 miles of the firing line. In this hospital, in addition to orthopedic surgical care, there will be equipment for surgical reconstruc- tioE work and curative workshops, in which men will acquire ability to use injured members while doing work interesting and useful in itself This method has supplanted the old and tiresome one of prescribing a set of motions for man to go through, with no purpose than to rc-acquirc usc of his injured part.
 "lt is not the intention that men able to go back to the firing line shall be returned to this country unless their convalesccncc will extend over a period of a considerable number of months. Soldiers unable to return to duty will be sent to the reconstrrlc- ton hospitals in the United States"