The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1918-08-28
AMERICAN HOSPITAL IN FRANCE
Some Remarkable Cases That Have
Been Treated.

Paris, July % Correspondence OF
The Associated Press)-The case OF
one American marine who went
through a hail of shrapnel and ma
chine gun fire at Cantigny and is now
convalescing from wound IN the
great military hospital at Neullly, IN
the Paris suburbs. seems to have
demonstrated that the American heio
helmet, commonly called by soldiers:
the tin hat is a thoroughly rellable
article when put to the supreme test.
This marine owed his life. to his TIN
hat" and the peculiar qualities OF ITS
steel in giving slightly without shat
terins. In the midst of the action he
went down with a ball striking the
TOP of the helmet and pressing down
to the skull: He was brought back,
along with the helmet which showed
a deep indentation about the size OF
half a base ball 1t was this indenta-
ton which had pressed down to the
scalp. making a wound which requlr-
! ed trepaning. But there it stopped
and the metal of the tin hat after Civ
| ing to the missile until its force was
spent, had stopped it in its deadly
fight straight toward the brain. The
trepaning operation was only slight
and the marine was we'll on the way
to recovery.
The idented helmet was preserved,
/ not as a souvenir. but to be for
! warGed to the ordnance experts at
Washington to show them the good
Qualities Of their helmets. 1t is said
that hard and brittle steel, which
would have resisted without giving.
would have been shattered to bits by
the impact and the ball would have
gone straight through the brain.
IN an adjoining ward a stalwart
Young marine who had been in the
same Cantigny fight stood at attention
with no apparent sign of wound. But
the surgeon, feeling the BOYS throat,
nodded approvingly and then re-
marked that this was one Of the most
remarkable cases that had ever come
under his observation. and probably
/ the only case of the kind on record.
/ A bullet had struck the soldier in the
| left side of the neck and had gone
through to the gul.et where it stop
ped. and had then descended or been
swallowed into the stomach.
An N-ray examination clearly
showed the ball in the intestines.
But instead of removing it by an
operation the surgeons decided to
await the course of nature and see If
the soldier would digest the rifle ball.
And this he did One Of the sur
! gcons remarked that the chances OF
such thing happening were less
than one in q million but colleague
added that the chances were far less
! than that as he could not recall any
like case in the whole range OF
military surgery.
Many Of the: French poilus under
American care were in the wards
of the Daughters Of the American
/ Confederacy, with the beds marked
I; with the names. of the Wel1-known
! Southern figures such as Stonewa}l
Jackson, Senator Zebulon Vance,
Gel eral Joseph Wheeler Of Alabama.
When the big dietary kitchen was
inspected later there was savory
smell OF American dishes and dain-
ticS DelnS prepared LOT the Wouiloed
II. en, and one OF the surgeons cheer
cd the cooks with the remark Your
dishes do more good than. all our
! medicines" And this is. literally
true. Tor these American wounded
do not want foreign food but long for
the simple old-fasfioned dishes OF
home like boiled custard, matted
milk. egg-nog and bread and milk.
So that even in the food American
cooks are doing their share, ana
down to the last detail the Amerl-
canism Of the big military hospital
is proving blessing to the American
naimed and wounded who have come
back from the front