The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-03-13
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORM A TION
BUREAU
FREDERIC J. HAsK1N. Director.
Warrington. D. C.
A NATIONAL MEDICAL CENTER.
FREDERIC
Warrington. D. C.


Washington. d. c., :..arch s.-These
seems to be chance, at last, for the
esta blishment of a large. national
medical center here. Congress has
beenAasked by the surgeon general OF
the army to authorize the construc-
ton of the necessary buildings in con-
nection with the Walter Reed Army
hospital, and so far congress has not
objected. In fact, the senate appro-
priations committee. which has been
holding hearings Oh the proposition.
seems 20 be distinctly in favor of 1t.
Only ten million dollars are squired
to erect the buildings. and the medical
! corps is inclined to think that it has
earned this much for the nation dur
ing the war Never has an armys
health been guard ID so successfully,
never has the sick rate been forced
so low. The work of American army
surgeons in Europe has astonished the
world Furthermore, by manufactur
vaccine used in the army, the Army
Medical school saved the government
on that one item aloi So, 900
If this vaccine had been purchased
at the market price it would have cost
the government S4,500,000, whereas
the Army Medical school produced It
at a cost of 100000. Even congress
admits that the nation owes the Army
Medical corps some testin Jnial of its
apprecia ton.
For years. the medical personnel
of the army has toiled along with the
/ most inadequate housing facilities and
a maximum OF inconvenience. Instead
of bein,; attached to a hospital where
the students could get the proper eX-
| perience, the Army Medical school
has been isolated in an ancient build
, ing which was built when the archi-
lecture of office buildings followed as
nearly as possible the lines of a house.
| 1t is SO narrow and cramped and out
J of-date that the elevat 1r seems an an
achronism, and it must have been one
! of the first elevators invented at that
| The Army Medical Museum all the
| Surgeon Generals Library are also
house in an odd, ella pidated bl ding
which looks as if it would collapse
at any moment, and which has no ade-
| quate protection from fire. Yet the
museum contains some remarkable
| specimens that could probably not be
| duplicated, and the Surgeon Generals
| Library is the finest in the world
! The Russian Medical Library at T -tro-
! grad was said to be equally as fine, but
! this is now reported to be in ruins.
! Another handicap that the army
medical corps has had to face is the
/ fact thatNits men, stationed at army
/ posts in China, the Philippines, Alaska.
| Porto Rico and all parts of the United
| States, have never had an army uni
versity or. clinic to which to return and
! do postgraduate work. The best
i short periods off to go to clinics and
| learn the most progressive methods of
trea tment, but the army physician,
| isolated in one spot, has had to StruS-
| gle to keep up to date. In spite of
this, it is to the army medical men
| that we owe the eXplanatio and sue
| cessful treatment of yellow fever; the
subjugation of typhoid fever: and the
first effective campaign against Vene-
real disease.
With the adeaIIate- research facili-
| ties and housing accomm oda tons at
| their disposal at a large medical CEN
ter, such as the present army bill pro-
poses, we may expect even greater
| things of the army medical corps. The
nation viii profit on the investment
in the end. The Walter Reed hospi-
ta1-named after Major Walter Reed.
one of tina. valiant group of men to
discover that the mosquito caused yell
low fever-1lies in a picturesque strip
/ of open country on the outskirts of
| Washington. At the beginning of the
war, it consisted of few stately, red
| by wide stretches of green lawn and
placed neatly at intervals along
smooth, concrete walks. 1t had a
leisurely tmosphere-more like a
southern plantation than a hospital.
But now the stately, red-brick build
rough pine wards, nurses quarters,
vocational shops of one kind and an
other and military offices. hastily
erected, to supply the temporary needs
of war. As soon most of the
wounded men are returned to civilian
life, these wooden buildings will be
/. torn down, and the ground prepared
for the buildings of the new army
medical center.
4 Plans for these building are al
ready being drawn in the surgeon
generals office. The one which will
house the army medical school is an
attractive, colonial structure, costing
$4,000, 900. After making the best of
it's present quarters for several years,
the school certainly deserves this.
With the museum, the library and
/ the hospital to draw on for research
/. and experience, it is expected that
the school will become one of the
greatest medical centers of the world.
So far, the United States has been
| i'd 20 fa, hel ;,,1