In the Air-Service Division, flight surgeons and physical directors were appointed, the corps being large enough to eqwp each train ing field and camp for fliers in the United States and in France, with a proper organiza tion. The medical branch of the air service se lected the fliers and looked after their care and condition, so as to reduce to the minimum accidents due to physical unfitness. The flight surgeon at a camp prescribed rest, recreation or temporary relief from duty. as the case re quired. He made sick calls on aviators, visited cases in hospitals and consulted attending phy sicians regarding these cases. Tests were con ducted to determine effects of rarefied air upon aviators. The flight surgeon and the physical director, who is his assistant, lived in close touch with the fliers. The physical director su pervised the recreation and physical training. For use in emergency at flying fields, there were ambulance air planes or flying ambulances — standard training planes with the rear cock pit cleared and enlarged sufficiently to permit of a combination stretcher seat to enable the injured man to be propped up and rest easily. These air ambulances were of value because of their speed, ability to reach places not readily accessible by automobile ambulance, and be cause they assured a gentle and comfortable journey. The flight surgeon and a skilled pilot went in the flying ambulance when emergency arose, the surgeon taking necessaries for first aid and minor operations. Flight surgeons qualified as pilots whenever possible.
Army medical men used the results of chemists' research and modern invention to combat and overcome poison "mustard* gas and the various other scientific diabolical methods of warfare in which Germany set the pace. The Division on Gas Mask Defense (later placed under the Chemical Warfare Service, a separate branch of the War Department) established schools in each camp, in which every officer and man was instructed in gas defense. A gas mask giving far greater protection than the German mask and at least equal to that used by any other army was devised and sup plied to both the men and horses in the Ameri can forces. Special sections provided the masks, instructed in their use in • daily drills and attended to repairs overseas. Soldiers were required to adjust masks in six seconds.
The Army Medical Museum and the surgeon-general's office are important aids in the work of the Medical Department and instruction in military medical matters. The Museum, of which Col. William O. Owen was for many years the officer in charge, is operated for medical and scientific research and is a central clearing-house for pathological speci mens. It contains the most remarkable collec tion of gunshot fractures in existence (from the Civil War), also laboratory workshops, art department, complete motion picture depart ment. Pathological specimens from the front
were assembled and exhibited here, and cata logued and co-ordinated with the corresponding clinical histories for investigation purposes. The library, which is really the National Medical Library, is a source of medical information to the Medical Corps and to the medical public in general. It is second only to that of the Paris Medical Faculty in number of volumes and is the most useful and valuable of all medi cal libraries in that it has the finest collection of medical periodicals in the world.
Here the Military Surgeon, the literary organ of the Medical Corps and of the Association of Military Surgeons, is edited and published. the surgeon-general passes on medical articles for publication by medical officers through the board of publications. Much valuable material bearing upon the Great War has already been issued with his sanction.
Records of health conditions, reports and statements of sick and wounded, and all manner of other data will be here available for the 'Medical and Surgical History of the War,' which is being compiled, to be published within five years after peace is declared. Medical and surgical material of value bearing on epidemics, group diseases or unusual surgical cases, were sent in by the base hospitals. The division after September, 1917, made tabular statements concerning the movement of preventable dis eases, based upon periodic telegraphic reports made to the Division of Sanitation from the 31 separate cantonments. This compilation will be made a first installment of the history of the mobilization of the United States army.
The senior medical officer on the staff of the commander of a field army is a chief surgeon; the senior medical officer of the line of com munication is a surgeon, base group; the sur geon in charge of the zone of the advance is a division surgeon, with the grade of colonel; of a brigade operating independently, brigade sur geon; of a detachment (regiment or small com mand), the surgeon. When guards from the line are detailed to sanitary formations and the commander of the guard is a commissioned officer, he confers with the medical commander as to the character of guard duty desired, but exercises no control over the sanitary forma tion. Guards may use their arms in self-defense or in defense of the sick and wounded. Field hospitals when not parked with divisional trains are ordinarily guarded by ambulance companies. All sanitary troops and armed detachments or sentinels detailed to guard sanitary formations, falling into the hands of the enemy do not become prisoners of war, but are disposed of under Article 12 of the Geneva Convention, 1906.