The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-07-25
A HOSPITAL IN FRANCE

N0u Siooo, noW are III operation III
France. Five of these hospitals are
back of the British lines, and were
among the first to be sem from this
country following the entry of the
United States into war. The distri.
button of the other units which pre-.
ceded the American Expeditionary
Force or crossed contemporaneously
with sections of Gen. Pershing's army,
all of which ultimately may operate
behind the American lines, is not at
present information for general public
knowledge.
There is a bureau of base hospitals
and hospital units of the American
Red Cross, which was created for the
purpose of organizing base hospitals
and hospital units; assembling the
personnel; directing the purchase of
their equipment; and acting as a
clearing house for all matters pertain
ing to hospitals. To increase the eff
f%iciency of the units the policy has
been to select a large hospital or uni
versity to act as a parent institution,
and from its medical and nursing staff
to choose a group Of individuals who
have been accustomed 10 work toeeth-
err.
The personnel of a 500-bed hospital
unit consists Of a commanding officer
from the army medical corps; a quar-
termaster from the Quartermaster's re-
missioned to the medical officers re.
serve corps; two dentists, commits
stoned in the dental officers reserve
corps; siXty-five nurses enrolled as
Red Cross nurses; one hundred and
fifty-three men Of the enlisted reserve
corps of the medical department Of
the army; six civilian employees. in
Guiding a registrar, a dietitian, labor
atory technicians and stenographers,
and one chaplain who is commission.
ed under the Red Cross.
The equipment for a base hospital
comprises everything which is essen.
til. to the operation of a five-hunGred
bed hospital except housing. This
equipment has been especially de-
signed to meet the needs of modern
warfare and has been found to cost
upwards Of seventy-fve thousand dol
lars. Here is a list showing the
things hat are needed for the equip
ment of a base hospital: Beds, bed
ding, ward furniture, drugs, surgical
instruments. dental instruments, labor-
atory supplies and equipment, mess
gear, sterilizers (ambulances, touring
car, motor trucks, motor cycle), COM
plete X-ray plant, kitchen, disinfec.
tors, surgical dressings and hospital
garments. In some instances base
hospitals have sailed with a complete
refrigerating and laundry equipment,
necessary to the manufacture of
splints. braces, and the repair of sur
gical instruments.
The base hospital, as its name iadi-
Gates, stands in the same relation,
practically speaking, to a hospital or
ganization in the war zone, as a whole,
that an army or division heaGluar-
tiers does to the fighting forces under
a specific command. 1t is located
many miles to the real of the fighting
front and, theoretically, is beyond the
range of the heaviest guns of the en-
envy. But theory does not work in
practice at all times, since guns be-
gan to shoot seventy-fve miles or
more, and in this particular war,
moreover, the enemy, Unsuitable in his
pursuit of frightfulness, has taken
special delight in locating the resting
places of the wounded and dropping
bombs upon them from his aeroplanes
and Zeppelins.
But the base hospital is comrara-
lively safe-safe, it will be readily ad-
mitted, being a strictly comparative
term-and With the wonders of mod
ern surgical science and skill the
chances of the wounded nan who
lives long enough to reach there are
very good. Generally speaking, a pa
tient reaches the base hospital. t-ere
to remain either until discharged be-
cause he no longer requires surgical
or medical treatment, or else sent to
some convalescent home or orthorcdic
institution where his crippled body
may be re-made and the man himself
rendered fit for a life Of usefulness
in the years following his great socri-
fee.
When the wounded man, whose ulti.
mate destination is the base hospital,
reaches there he is likely 70 have
passed through the hands of two or