Newport daily independent., 1918-03-04
Associated Press Dispatch.

cording to Major w. A. Shields, in charge of the Army's Central Depart ment medical supply depot here, who has just given to The Associated Press detailed account of the meth ods employed in safeguarding the health of the men in khaki.
 Major Shields said that medical officers at the various army hospitals have only to ask for what they want for the treatment of the men and it goes to them.
 "An officer at Fort Sheridan re- gently asked for a special type of operating table," said Major Shields. "It was not standard table and is used only rarely. Although it had to be made to order and cost consid- erably more than the ordinary table, it was rushed at once to the hospital"
 Many surgeons, he stated, ask for certain uncommon instruments, sometimes for use in one particular case only, yet the medical supply of ficers spare no efforts to obtain them.
 Carrying out the departmental policy of thoroughness in the treat ment of the men, only the most sani- tary, most efficient equipment is sent out This rule applies to everything, from the furniture used in the insti- tutions to the dishes from which the patients eat. Major Shields said that all hospitals are supplied with high grade silver-plated knives, forks and spoons, fine quality linens, the best food, sleeping quarters as pleasant and convenient as money can provide, and that everything else is on the same high plane.
 Although the depot has to furnish no supplies for wounded men as yet, the hospitals of the Central Depart ment have received more than 9,000,- GOO feet of cloth bandages-enough to extend from New York to the Texas coast When the American forces are actually engaged in trench warfare in any considerable numbers, and wounded men begin to pour into American hospitals. Major Shields said. it is probable that the medical supply depot will be overtaxed to supply needed bandages. Because of this fact officials are Investigating paper bandages which are said to be equally as serviceable as the kind now in general use. Paper bandages have been in use in Germany for some time almost exclusively owing to the inability of that country to get material for cloth bandages.
 Major Shields expressed confidence that the department will not be em- barrassed because of the scarcity of any needed drug or medicine used at army hospitals. German drugs have been duplicated by American medical investigators with the result that the to care for its men, either wounded or i'll.
 Practically no whiskey is used in army hospitals, Major Shields said. Its use, he declared, is being dis- couraged because the reaction It causes makes it's use as stimulant undesirable, according to the medical officer. He said, however, that small quantity of whiskey is carried at the depot and will be supplied should any medical officer call for it. In this connection Major Shields spoke of the Vera Cruz expedition in 1 1914 when he acted as medical supply officer for General Funston. "During tn, month that we were there," he said, <I issued just one quart of whiskey."
 | On the other hand alcohol IS one of the most widely used medical sup plies kept at the depot. It is shipped to cantonment camps in 50 gallon drums and is used in great quantities for baths and in rubbing.
 Electricity is being made to do its share in the care of the soldiers Many modern hospital appliances are Tolerated by electricity in addition to the part it is playing in the treat ment of tuberculosis. X-Ray photo graphs of lungs of soldiers suspected of being tubercular are taken at the rate of fifty day at each of the cantonment hospitals. By the use of these "lung pictures" the treatment of tuberculosis has been greatly slm- plified. Fifty thousand X-Ray plates have been used at the Central De- partment camps in the past two months, Major Shields said.