The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1917-10-19
Big HOSPITALS BUILT
Capacity to Equal 10 Per Cent
Of Unole Sans Soldiers.
sulidlnus Containing at Least 1000
t,eds Provided for Each Training
Camp Ia This Country.

Provisions for caring for the health
OF Uncle Sans soldiers made by the
medical department Of the army In
clude the construction OF 80 hospitals
at National army and National Guard
camps, the enlargement of some thirty
hospitals used In connection with Off
GERS training camps, taking over OF
construction OF at least two general
hospitals at ports, increasing the size
of two other general hospitals behind
these, and the building or taking over
OF a number OF general hospitals to be
used for special treatment work
plans for this phase of the work are
not complete. Efforts are being made
to secure hospital buildings ready
built, but some will probably have to
be constructed. A number of sites
have been offered already.
A further step to be worked out is
the provision Of reconstruction hospi-
tails, where artificial limbs will be
made, repair surgery done, artificial
limbs fitted to patients, and re-educa.
ton Of cripples begun, to enable them
to use the artificial limbs provided and
again become useful members of 30.
ciety.
The aim of the medical department
is to have hospital provisions for s per
cent Of the enlisted force at once, and
then to proceed to extend that to 10
per cent. Abroad facilities for 20 per
cent of the American expeditionary
forces will be provided.
AT cantonments hospital provisions
will be made for 3 per cent Of the
troops at each camp. A complete mod
ern hospital will be constructed at
each, containing at least q thousand
beds. With the space reserved for ex-
tensions, each hospital and its auxil-
larry buildings will require 90 acres.
This allotment will leave generous
space between the various buildings Of
each hospital. Hospitals at National
army camps will cost approximately
100000 each, and at National Guard
camps, where heating is not required,
construction" is lighter and sewer-con
nected plumbing is not to be used,
about $400,000. This will bring the
total cost Of the 80 hospitals to about
$14,B00000. Each hospital will have
equipment equal to that of the best
institutions in the country. although
the construction Of the buildings will
be Of much cheaper quality.
One type is being used in all the
hospital construction work done by the
army. All the buildings are "a feet
wide, the length varying to meet the
needs. The wards are usually 167
feet long, which is the size needed for
so beds. There will be a diet kitchen
for each ward, porch on one side
and end Of each ward, and a corridor
connecting with the buildings on either
side which will be covered in the case
Of the northern cantonments.
About seventy buildings will be com
prised in each cantonment hospital on
the 1,000-bed basis. In some cases
two wards are Joined, thus reducing
the actual number Of separate build
ings, but the number Of buildings will
reach about seventy, counting each
ward as building.
Each hospital will have well.
equipped laboratory, where bacteria.
logical and pathological work can be
done, which any well-equipped hospi-
tai could handle. Some special blood
tests will be made at the department
hospitals, which will take care of any
work that the divisional hospitals at
the camps cannot attend to.
There will also be an infirmary for
each regiment which will fulfill the
functions usually performed by such
institutions. There men not needing
to be confined in hospital will report
when any condition appears which de-
mands watching. There vaccination
will be done and the typhoid and para
typhoid preventive treatments admin
istered.