The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-01-07
DR. LOWER SPEAKS ON TREATMENT OF
 WOUNDED SOLDIERS
Interesting Paper Read at Meeting of the Jefferson County Medical
 Society

Soldiers wounded while advancing on the enemy respond more promptly to medical treatment than do soldiers wounded on the retreat, pr. William E. Lower, associate professor of surgery at the Western Reserve university, Cleveland, Ohio, told the members of the Jefferson County Medical society last night at their meeting in the ball room of the Tutwiler hotel.
 pr. Lower one of the most eminent surgeons in the United States, spent over a year in the medical corps of the British army before the United States entered the war. He came here to address the medical society at the request of Dr. Clyde w. Shropshire, the recently elected president.
 In calling the meeting to order pr. Shropshire stated that it was his in tention to have an outside physician or surgeon of note read a paper to the society at least once a month, local members of the profession supplying the papers at the other meetings. Dr. Shropshire thanked the members for the honor they had conferred upon him by electing him president, and requested them to give their hearty cooperation to his administration, say ing that in no other way could the society attain the results or accomplish the things it should have in mind
 HOSPITAL METHODS
 pr. Lowers paper was descriptive of the care and treatment of the wounded soldiers, of the first aid sta tions, the clearing stations, the base hospitals and the methods employed at each, and of the high percentage of recoveries resulting from the ap- plication of scientific treatment.
 At the beginning of the war, he said, first attention was given to the seriously wounded with the result that infection set up in thousands of those only slightly wounded, many times re- sulting in death and always prevent ing the soldiers return to the front. Later on when the man-poWer Of the British began to fall away and there was urgent need of the return or every man to the firing line at the earliest possible moment the surgeons, while not neglecting the seriously wounded, gave first attention to minor cases In from two to three weeks these men were able to go back to the front, whereas under the former method of deferring treatment of them until the more serious cases had been cared fora trip to England and the pas sage of from four to six or seven weeks occurred before their return. MORALE AFFECTED
 At the battle of Cambrai, he said, when General Byng made his bril- liant advance into the German lines, thousands of British soldiers were brought back to the hospitals. They believed they had whipped the Ger ~f w a near. They came back singing and shouting, their morale high. They
 responded quickly to treatment. A ] few days later when the Germans
 drove them back it looked dark for
 the British; thousands of Byng's men l were brought to the hospital. They I believed the war was lost to them and l their morale was low. Their wounds | were longer healing.
 | The question propounded by Dr
 Lower was, What application will the | surgeons make of their experience and | their discoveries in military surgery | when they return to civil surgery! | The information obtained and the ex- 1 perience they had while in the army, if applied in their civil practice, he said would prove of inestimable benefit.
 CHARACTER OF WOUNDS Following the reading of his paper
 Dr. Lower displayer a number oi l stereopticon slides showing the char
 acter of wounds received by soldiers l in battle in some instances as many | as half dozen wounds being found on one person; describing each as il ! was thrown on the screen. Hospital | arrangements, wards filled with pa l tients, and stretchers and ambulances | were shown.
 One discovery made in the war. sait | Dr. Lower, was that the elaborate equipment found in so many hospital: | was not necessary; that in the army hospitals many operations were per formed without removing the patien from the stretcher, and infection rarely followed.
 Following Dr. Lowers paper ant stereopticon views pr. Shropshire in 1 vited the members and visitors presen to be his guests at buffet luncheon
 About 200 members of the societ! and guests were present