The Washington herald., 1922-03-05
HOSPITAL RADIOS
BRIGHTEN LIFE IN
MANY HOSPITALS
Sets Attached to Beds
Bring Concerts to Pa
tents Side.

ing for the thousands of weary
hospital patients particularly those
who are confined to the institu-
tions maintained by the govern
mePt for disabled veterans of the
world war.
1t can no longer be associated
exclusively with shock and the
painful after-effects of an opera
tion. But rather the word awak-
ems at once thought of pleasure,
recreation and amusement, for the
radio broadcasting stations throw
concerts. lectures and entertain
ments OF all kinds on the ether
and bed-riddep patients while
away many hours listening in with
the aid of the radiophone.
Just why the radiophone should
not have found its way into the
hospital earlier is difficult to un-
derstand since there is no place
where It can be of greater service.
But II Is an institution now in
every well-equipped convalescent
ward or in the sick room and the
concert On the evenings is looked
forward to with the same enthu-
siasm with which the disabled men
look forward 10 the opening OF the
baseball season.
At Walter Reed
At Walter Reed Generat Hos
pjtal, the United States Public
Health Service Hospital and the
Naval Hospital there is complete
apparatus for the receiving of
such programs as are sent out
from the larger stations. But in
this these hospitals are little diff
ferent from others under govern
ment supervision. The physicians
have found that 1t is one of the
greatest aids in keeping the men
satisfied and cheerful and every
hospital now has its receiving set.
As many of the government insti-
tutions are situated far from any
city where the ambulatory patients
may attend theaters and ball
games the patients naturally be-
come respondent and 1t was one
of the big problems to keep the
men entertained until the officials
experimented with the wireless.
Radio amateurs in regions where
broadcasts are thick have long
since found wireless a blessing In
hours of illness. II is. in fact, a
common practice now around
Washington for the owner of a
receiving set to liyen up a sick
room-his own or a relatives, by
hooking up his apparatus to the
bed springs which work wondeN
fully as an aerial. The patient,
donning the head phones. can lie
at ease by the hours, hearing the
gossip and news of the outside
world and catching in endless va
riety the lectures, sermons, songs
and instrumental music with which
the great transmitting stations arc
constantly filing the ether, says
the Scientific American.
The next natural step. Of course,
was the hospital. Equipped with a
loud speaker. one-reasonably priced
receiving set can now entertain an
entire ward. Ask the boys at Walter
Reed, or at Perryville, Nd. what they
think the most Of in the way of en-
tertainment and a majority of them
will register a vote for the wireless
telephone.
In fact there is no end to helpful
ness Of the radio phone in hospitals
and the variety Of recreation made
possible by its instllation.
! Some Of the most interesting ex-
periments in this direction have been
made at Walter Reed. Several hun
dred patients have been entertained
at one time by a pleasant-voiced
nurse, who reads magazine stories
into the transmitter. tell stories. and
sings, or says the little cheering
things that only a woman can say.
At another time a phonograph was
started in the central station. 1t
was Connected with radiophone
transmitter, that changed the sound
waves into radio waves. The radio
waves swept over and through the
numerous buildings that constitute
the hospital. Wherever they en-
countered metal they sent electric
currents through It.
Soldiers in their white iron beds
snapped little clip onto the bed
spring. picked up an instrument that
resernbled a telephone receiver and
heard the music of the phonograph