The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1943-11-11
Your Health
Modern Warfare
Being Matched
by Surgery

large artillery make IN general
small clean wounds. and proper
uoua,ely DO not Kill very often.
Dr. C.erdeuIng viii answer
questions Of general interest .
only. and then only through
ms column.
They move more rapidly, put more
men o-t Of action. engage more OF
the civilian population, but that Is
their military advantage, not de-
Structlyeuess.
When Hannibal found the Ro-
mans a. Caunae IN 30 b. {. with
swords and spears, his army killed
so per cent Of the Romans. At
Waterloo. with the Old muzzle
loading guns and expansive bull
lets, the English lost % per cent
Of their army on the battlefield IN
one day.
The worst wounds | have seen
in the present conflict were in a
hospital on the Pacific coast and
were inflicted by Japanese Who
prefer Go fgat close up with the
butcher Knives they carry or with
bayorets.
Efficiency of Medical Corps
or course, part of the good NOR
tallty rate We are having Is due to
the increased efficiency Of our
medica, corps. Ii IS hard to make
a layman understand how much
better surgery IS than it used to
be. ! can trace the improvement
during my own day. In the first
place, II Is s!mpiitied. The sur
geons | used TO work for did about
80 unnecessary and awkward
things during one operation. They
had devised a long list OF opera
tons for any one condition; some
times they did one, some days they
did another. 1t was largely mat
ter Of whim And they never really
perfected themselves IN any one
operation.
The worst wounds in the pres
ent war are abdominal. But even
30, whereas We used to lose 100
per cent of wounded men from alb
dominal wounds, now We save %
per cent or more. In the Solomons
the medical corps saved % per
cent Of abdominal wounds.
OF course, many things contrib
ute to these good results Better
and safer anaesthetlcs, the sulfa
drugs, better nursing service, de-
pendence on simpler antiseptics-
these and many other things that
do not seem particularly dramatic
help in the good results.
Modern Surgery
At Pearl Harbor, modern sur
gerry rather than modern gunnery
outwitted the Japs and prevented
them from carrying out their plan
of destroying an entire popula-
ton. Three days before Pearl Har-
Dor DR.. John J. Moorhead, a spe-
cislist in war and traumatic sur
gerry, gave a lecture on The Treat
ment Of Wounds On the Sunday
morning Of the attack he was be
ginning a lecture on Burns when
the summons came.
DR.. Moorhead spent seven hours
in the operating room. Every
medical man was fresh in his prep
aration for the emergency. The re-
suits were in his words better
than | had seen during l9 months
in France in 19l7-19lS.'
On one navy hospital ship in
1912 there We're only 7 deaths
among 1000 wounded men--a per
centage Of OBS per cent.
A good accoun. of modern war
surgery will be found in George
W. Grays book. Science at War
published by Harpers).
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
VI. PLEASE tell me whether
it is fact or superstition that it is
harmful to sleep on the left side
or with the arms raised.
Answer: Superstition.
c. s. B.:-What should be done
for fngernailS when the get sore
around the corners and have pus
in them?
Answer: 1t is probably funda-
mentally rlngworm infection
The application Of WhIthelds ONT
ment is indicated.