Particular attention was paid to empyema and to pneumonia epidemics. A special com mission of physicians and pathologists studied the problem, aided by special teams of physi cians and pathologists in each camp. The divi sion of surgery perfected arrangements, in ac cordance with the system recommended by the commission, for quarantine and isolation and prophylaxis. The methods employed were necessary on account of the gatherings of large bodies of recruits. If, despite precautions, em pyema did result, the surgeons adopted the policy of treating by operation for drainage of the chest.
The division of food and nutrition placed nutrition officers in every camp and cantonment where at least 10,000 were in training, in the United States and abroad. Nutritional surveys were conducted for the purpose of investigating food in storage, in transit and in preparation; cooking and wastage were studied in all the camps, methods improved, economies instituted, and dietetics taught. Studies as to the exact amount of food consumed and percentage of waste in more than 100 messes in 40 camps were made and instructions given to mess officers. The bill of fare was carefully balanced for wheat, starch, fat, protein, minerals and vitamine, and for sugar. The soldiers under General Pershing received 3,500 to 4,200 calo ries of heat units daily as compared with the 2,500 calories deemed sufficient for the ordinary citizen. All nutrition officers were food spe cialists, mainly men and women who had been connected with colleges and public bodies as physiologists, chemists and food inspectors. As a concrete result of a two-day survey of seven companies (1,135 men), the average edible waste was found to be 1.12 pounds per man per day. Appropriate instructions as to food and mess economy were given to mess ser geants and cooks, and a second survey of the same companies showed waste of .43 pounds per man per day — a saving of .69 pounds, which was equal to $61.75 per day for the seven messes, $22,542 per year. If this ratio prevailed throughout the camp of 15,000 men, the total saving would be about $300,000 per year.
A statistical bureau attended to the collec tion and co-ordination of memoranda and rec ords of sick and wounded, from the time of injury until discharge from the hospital. These records were kept in the most approved was in the surgeon-general's office with the aid of punching, tabulating and sorting machines.
Deaths of officers and men of the military personnel were immediately reported in writing by the senior medical officer present to the commanding officer. Deaths of medical officers were reported by the attending surgeon or the nearest medical officer to the department sur geon, a duplicate being sent to the surgeon general.
Medical and dental students in civil life. whose age placed them within the jurisdiction of the selective service law, were permitted to enlist in the Enlisted Reserve Corps and placed on inactive duty so that they might continue their college courses while subject to call to active service. The Army Medical School in Washington gave instruction to junior medical officers who had passed their examinations fur entrance into the regular army. The faculty. comprising commandant, professor and assist ant professors, were detailed by the War De partment from among the officers of the Medi cal Corps. Special professors were nominated by the faculty with the approval of the surgeon general from among distinguished members of the Medical Reserve Corps. As instructors, there were officers of other branches of the army detailed by the War Department to give special courses. Officers of the Medical Reserve Corps who were candidates for appointment is the Medical Corps attended as students; also such officers of the army and organized militia as might have been ordered or authorized to attend; also enlisted men of the Hospital The equipment included library, laboratories and all the other usual appointments of a medi cal college. Important in the system of train ing was the training school at Camp Greenleaf, Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, where 2,500 physi cians from civil life entering the Medical Re serve Corps as officers and 6,000 enlisted men of the medical department (Hospital Corps men) were an intensive three months' course in training for all phases and branches of military medicine and sanita tion, including physical instruction and adminis trative duties. The physicians could here study branches for which they might never have opportunity in their civilian practice. Special opportunity for instruction in surgery was af forded by three schools in New York City, and one each in Philadelphia, Rochester, Minn, New Orleans, Chicago, Saint Louis and Cleve land. A medical and surgical school in Paris for surgeons of the American Expeditionary Forces afforded an intensive course of one month in administration, surgery and sanitation, with lectures by experienced surgeons; and young American surgeons had an opportunity of observing methods at French and British casualty clearing stations before being placed in base hospitals for their initial war work. The next step of the young surgeon was as head of an operating surgical "team" manning an evacuation hospital.