The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1922-09-01

For many were still helpless, others
insane, while all were liable to serious
injury from the unusual excitement of
being removed from buildings with the
roofs aflame and carted across town
in a downpour of rain, to be housed in
a school building for the night. The
hospital officials, fearing to increase
their patients v condition, wise
ly denied the throng admission, and
did their best to assure the women that
their boys were safe and could be Wis
tied on the morrow. Meanwhile the
crowd refused to leave, continuing to
peer through the iron gates as the rain
drifted down.
Because of my profession and the
organization l represented, I was ad-
mitted Immediately. The excitement
had diminished inside, the boys had
dried their clothing and been returned
to their wards. Little physical damage
to property was d%iscernible. What
damage the nations precious wards
housed there had received, remains to
be seen, for tuberculosis and surgical
cases had suffered exposure, and men,
tai cases experienced the excitement
of a fire.
One Couldn't Be Moved.
After examining building and re-
ports, and discussing the situation with
the medical officers, l learned the boys
were at mess, so was about to depart
when I asked the officer in charge,
doctor, weren't some of the worst
surgical cases left in the buildings ?
Haven't you any in such bad shape
that it was dangerous to them p
swell, we had to take a lot of them
out in stretchers and ambulances, of
course" he replied, "but there was
only one we didn't move. It would
probably have killed him if W. had
taken him out. That was Lieut. Mac
kali, the bath tub case.' He's in a
ward all by himself, and we were pre-
pared to move him., too, but luckily
his building did not catch fire. He
was as game as a pebble about it."
l asked to be taken to Mackall's
ward. On the way over the medical
officer told me his story.
A member of a prominent Maryland
family, Mackall was rs years old, max
ing good in business and engaged to be
married when the war broke out. But
the call to the colors was imperative
Mackall enlisted in the national guard
and went overseas in the 115th Infan.
try Of the goth Division.
Pursuing the Germans with his di'
!, vision October 16, 1918, Mackall was
shot in the back by a German snipel
while crossing "No Mans Land" The
bullet partly severed his spinal cord
For six months he remained in French
hospitals, receiving treatment from
the ablest allied specialists. They fin
ally declared his case hopeless, anC
still suffering intensely, he was
brought to America in June 1919 ant
placed in the converted Fort McHenry
hospital, there to receive the consider
alton of the most eminent surgeons il
the country.
Sleeps in Tub Three Years.
Mackall slept little. Forced by the
nature of his injury to lie continually
upon his face and suffering intensely
the front of this body finally became
so tender that new methods had to b.
devised to care for him. So three
, years ago the doctors evolved a plar
of putting him in a bath tub for tn
, night, where buoyancy of the waite
, would relieve the pressure against hi!
tended flesh and allow him nightly for
g~etfulness in sleep such as he had no
known for nearly a year.
I had heard of the famous "bath tut
case" It was without parallel in tn
medical history of the world. But, lik'