Evening star., 1943-08-23
III. S. Doctors
by
|Mummies
nv THOMAS n. HENRY
star staff Correspondens

ny hnVNfas ~. nENAts
star staff Correspondent
PALERMO. Sicily.--rf ever a
group of doctors found themselves
in a physicians paradise, they are
the staff of an evacuation hospital
here.
1t would be paradise, that Is, IL
doctors and nurses didn't have 10
work about 90 hours day TO keep
up with the influx of wounded from
the front and at the same time
battle to keep down the fieas which
are the bane of most former italian
institutions. q
The job of this hospital, COM
manded by genial DR.. Charles r.
Smell, formerly of the staff of WAL
ter Reed Hospital and who says
Washington is the only place he
can call home in his Army career,
is to follow the front lines and take
wounded from the battle dressing
stations. This usually means set
ting up tents and unpacking a lot
of equipment in a hurry. Usually,
also, in this part of the world, there
Is no water. The chances are every
drop used must be hauled for miles.
Duce Dedicated Hospital.
Imagine, then, being set down as
sole occupants of one of the three
or four finest, largest and best ap-
pointed hospitals and medical re-
search centers on earth with the
best of facilities and equipment It
Is the newly-built medical school
of one of the oldest universities in
Europe, intended as a Fascist show
piece and dedicated by Mussolini
himself just before the war. Tt has
been world center of medical re-
search and important discoveries
have been reported from its labora-
tories.
But the wonders of It's museum
are what charm and haunt the
American Army doctors. Every
time one of them can steal
a few minutes away from work he
Is to be found there with institu-
tion's interpreter, Mrs. Rosemarie
Tournabene, American citizen of
Thompkinsville. Staten Island, N.
Y, who was caught here by the war.
She translates the fascinating tales
| OF the highly competent Italian
technic1an, only member of the
stan who has stuck to his post In
the turmoil.
Some May Doubt.
The prize exhibit is the mummi-
ned remains of 2-hour -old fe-
male infant in the process of giving
birth to another infant The child
to which she is giving birth looks az
II 1t would have been a normally
formed, human being Let 1t be
epeated-the child mother who died
in child birth was two hours old.
She lived in this city about 40 years
ago when the best process of pres
ervation was by mummification, the
technician says. {"
Naturally every doctor who hasn't
seen this exhibit will scott at the
description. He will say it is the
type of malignant growth known as
tetroma which sometimes resembles
miniature human being and some-
times occurs in young children. In
this case, they will say the tetroma
happened by one chance in about a
quadrillion, to be so placed as to
resemble a case of childbirth.
Perhaps this is the proper expla-
nation. But it must be stated for
the record that members of the staff
of the hospital are by no means
agreed about it for there are various
technical features which don't fit the
tetroma hypothesis.
Skeleton of Humpback.
Others think that this was a
Siamese twin phenomenon, but If
so the queerest of all queer instances
ever reported of this sort of double
| birth. Others do not agree with
either hypothesis, but cannot offer
any explanation of their own as to
how human being could become
pregnant nine months before being
born. repeat again - the child
mother was two hours old when the
birth occurred.
Then, to give one more creeps,
there is the skeleton of an 8-foot-
all humpback with a tiny brain in
probably the biggest. heaviest skull
ever known in a human being. 1t
looks like the skeleton of a gigantic,
malshapen gorilla with It's long.
dangling arm bones, rather than
that of gigantic mishapen man.
The technician remembers the
man when he walked in the flesh
about the streets of this city. He
died only in middle age. He was an
itinerant Egyptian who used to
stand on street corners and bet that
nobody in the crowd could reach up
to one of his arms held parellel with
the ground. The poor fellow always
won such bets and made a mesgre
livelihood from them before he came
TO join this grotesque company OF
the dead.
Museum of Horrors.
This is a very old university. It's
medical school has had many CEN
turies to gather the malformed hu-
mans that have passed through one
of the crossroads of the world and
came finally to its dissecting tables.
There is doubtless the largest coll
lection OF Siamese twins on earth.
The exhibit of kidney stones Is
marvellous. Some weigh as high as
10 pounds. Hardly any kind of hu-
man deformity is not exhibited here.
The doctors naturally are keen TO
get look inside the medical school
library which Is soon to be re-
opened. They have had the utmost
rr<-3peration from those Italian staff
members who could be reached and
who are eager to show their scien-.
tific treasures.