The grade classification of the personnel of a general hospital was as follows: Twenty medical officers (1 colonel commanding, 1 major, operating surgeon; 18 captains and lieu tenants, including quartermaster, pathologist. eye, ear, nose and throat specialist, 2 assistant operating surgeons, 12 ward surgeons, dental surgeon) ; 8 sergeants first-class (1 general su pervisor, 1 each in charge of office, quartermas ter supplies and records, kitchen mess, detach ment and detachment accounts, patients' cloth ing and effects, medical property and records, dispensary) ; 16 sergeants (1 in dispensary, 2 in storerooms, 1 in mess and kitchen, 4 in of fice, 2 in charge of police, 6 in charge of wards) ; 14 acting cooks; 115 privates first class and privates (68 ward attendants, 3 in dispensary, 5 in operating-room, 1 in laboratory, 14 in kitchen and mess, 6 in storerooms, 4 or derlies, 5 in office, 4 outsidepolice, 1 assistant to dentist, 4 supernumeraries) ; 46 nurses, fe male (1 chief nurse, 1 assistant to chief nurse, 41 in wards, 2 in operating-room, 1 dietician).
A subsequent development necessitated by the war was the creation of mobile hospitals compactly contained in motors and susceptible of rapid setting up and, if emergency dictated, removal. A mobile hospital section, consisting of 14 motor trucks in charge of a chief sur geon and an assistant, with 20 to 40 enlisted men and 10 army nurses, remained near a base hospital about 15 miles back of the battle front. Summoned by telephone, the section proceeded forward with doctors and set up its operating tent, the construction of the motor trucks being readily adaptable to the formation of a compact hospital unit with electrically lighted plant, sterilizing outfit, X-ray apparatus and small frame operating pavilion. Two of the trucks carried tents and hospital supplies, the whole plant when erected making a temporary field hospital with 120 beds. Each mobile hospital had its own headquarters and staff — lieutenant colonel, 2 captains, lieutenant and 3 enlisted men — in addition to the surgeons and men on call service. The main headquarters of the mo bile hospital branch was in charge of a colonel and 5 chiefs of the surgical staff for 5 sections.
Hospital trains specially fitted and arranged for the comfort of the wounded were used in the theatre of operations to convey the wounded from the evacuation hospitals to the base hospitals. One of the American hospital trains in operation in France was 930 feet long and consisted of 16 coaches. There was a fracture ward and an infectious diesease ward, and the train accommodated 360 patients in cots, or 480 sitting down and at the same time 120 in cots, making 600. Each ward had 36 cots hung in tiers of three. The equipment was as complete as that of any hospital in the United States. The staff of the train included 3 medical officers, a manager, 2 lieutenants, a sergeant first-class, 2 sergeants, 2 cooks and 31 enlisted men. Oper
ating-room, kitchen, pharmacy, stores and staff carriages were also provided.
Hospitals for prisoners of war were located adjacent to prison camps and stockades.
The three hospital ships, the Solace, Mercy and Comfort, placed in commission, were orig inally 10,000-ton merchant ships. The Mercy, a typical hospital ship, carried 321 bunks for the sick, and it was possible to use space for 100 to 200 more by use of cots and Gosso beds. Every department found in a well-equipped hospital was provided and there were surgical, medical, genito-urinary, eye, ear, nose and throat, contagious and convalescent wards. Each department was presided over by a special ist with an assistant, regular or reserve force officers of the navy. There also were roent genologists, laboratory men, dentists, 3 phar macists, 8 pharmacists' mates and 3 trained male nurses. There was a library, and as recre ation for convalescents, music was provided by a band and victrolas, and there were facilities for moving pictures. The ship was provided with 2 large ambulance motor boats, each accommodating about 16 stretchers.
Regulations provided that military hospital ships might not be captured while hostilities lasted, their names having been communicated to the belligerent powers before their use, but they might in no wise hamper the movements of the combatants. They were constructed or adapted specially and solely with the view to aiding the wounded, sick and shipwrecked. Each was painted white with a broad horizontal band of green.
The personnel of a hospital ship having 200 bed capacity consisted of 5 medical officers (1 lieutenant-colonel or major, 4 captains and lieu tenants, I sergeant first-class, 4 sergeants, 5 acting cooks, 30 privates first-class, of whom 29 were nurses and 1 an orderly).
The Division of Roentgenology provided X-ray apparatus and trained specialists to co operate with surgical units. The importance of the X-ray as the modern substitute for the probe was recognized and X-ray laboratories were established in hospitals in the United States and France. Mobile X-ray units also came into use. Eacil vehicle was a standard army ambulance with a few modifications, hav ing complete X-ray equipment including a dark room in which plates and films could be devel oped. It had its own power-plant distinct from the propelling engine of the vehicle. An X-ray ambulance in a road traveled 900 miles to Hamilton, Ontario, for the meeting of the British Medical Association, averaging 24 miles an hour for the journey. - About 50 such units were sent to France. The crew of each con sisted of 1 officer and 3 enlisted men, all of whom had comfortable sleeping accommoda tions.