Charles M. Oman

“ Could men in such plight stand the journey by plane, or crowded into a small ship, to Australia? Could they risk being torpedoed and flung into the sea? Between such hazards and the eventuality of falling captive to the Japs, which was the lesser evil? As the doctor went into the wards, every American face that looked up at him from the beds begged for a chance of escape.
The doctor sorted them. Most surgeons would have declared it nothing short of murder to put such sick men on the road. Dr. Wassell was counting on their will to get through to preserve them on that journey. ”

“ It is fantastic how much morale value is compressed in a single tube of familiar, American-made shaving cream, or a five-cent chocolate bar. To those mutilated, suffering, and nerve-shattered men, the doctor with his gifts of candy, ice cream, soap, and — final touch of thoughtfulness — long Chinese cigarette holders which would allow the comforts of a smoke to men whose burned arms and hands were swathed too heavily in bandages to let them hold a cigarette, must have seemed like a kindly American uncle. ”

“ In the past seventy-five years medicine has progressed from an art to a science. The doctor today has diagnostic aids which would have seemed fabulous to the physician of a hundred years ago. Exact laboratory tests and the X ray enable the physician to base his treatment on definite knowledge. These are as available to the surgeon and doctor aboard ship as to the man working in the most modern and extensive medical center. ”

“ ONE OF THE characteristics of our time is the desire to know. From all sides and from all groups of people of all ages comes a clamor for facts. For many generations medicine and surgery were Delphic mysteries, not to be revealed except to the initiated. But in the quarter century since the first bout of this war for human freedom all this has changed. Instead of the old hush-hush about many of the functions of the body and the diseases which attack it, a searchlight has been thrown on these matters. Today everybody is endocrine- and vitamin-conscious. ”

“ On the most peaceful cruise in friendly waters, the ship's crew are liable to all the wide variety of accidents that happen to men employed in big industrial plants. Steam pipes burst, and men working near them are scalded by the escaping steam. The ship lurches suddenly, and a steward carrying a heavy tray misses his footing on the steel ladder, falls, and limps to the sick bay with a sprained ankle and an assortment of bruises. ”

“ Many doctors come into the Navy from civil practice, as Medical Reserve officers for the duration of the war, and wonder at first how they are going to carry on without women nurses, and in the small confines of a fighting ship. The first discovery they all make — and admit with a simplicity that is quite touching to a doctor of the regular Navy — is that the hospital corpsmen, some of whom are lads less than twenty years old, who were students, plumbers, shoe clerks, morticians' helpers, and welders before they enlisted, make most efficient, dependable, and loyal nurses. ”

“ Treating men who are seriously injured in a large, well-equipped hospital ashore, where it is possible to give them the absolute rest they require, is one thing. Treating them in a small and crowded sick bay aboard ship, and while that ship is running at full speed in a danger zone, knowing that the enemy may renew their attack again at any moment, and that the patients may have to be put over the side on rafts or merely in life jackets, is another story. ”

“ After four hours of this, the orders came: "Abandon ship!" From the sick bay, the injured men were carried up the slanting deck to the starboard side of the ship. Life jackets were put on them. Sailors jerked the kapok-filled mattresses from the officers' berths, and the most severely injured men were lashed to these and lowered over the side. A well man went with every injured one, to look out for him.
"The most impressive thing about the whole business," Yon recalled, "was the men's willingness to help each other. There never was any thought of each man for himself. ”

“ Even though his patients are all male, and practically all of them young, every kind of case comes to the sick bay in the course of a single cruise. We have a saying in the Medical Corps: "In the Navy you may get anything from harelip to twins." Perhaps this isn't such an exaggeration now, since we have the Waves.
Aboard ship, the chief medical officer is much more than a ship's surgeon. He is depended upon for adequate treatment of the sick and wounded, and his advice and recommendations for promoting the health and well-being of the men are sought by the Line officers. ”

“ Every ship's crew has its quota of gold-brickers who try to work the doctor for a sick badge which automatically lets them off duty as long as they wear it. There is a continual contest between their ingenuity in devising symptoms and your skill in detecting it. Eventually you acquire a nose for malingerers and invent ways of dealing with them or, better still, of letting their shipmates deal with them.
A man in the black gang came several times to the sick bay, complaining of heat exhaustion. Heat exhaustion is something our engine-room gangs used to suffer from a great deal. ”

“ But the doctor persevered: "My life, sir, is not more valuable than that of any of the other brave officers and men who are to accompany you. Should I be killed or wounded, the officers and crew would be as well provided for after their achievement by Dr. Marshall alone as by him and myself united." He went on to urge the lieutenant with the argument: "The presence of a professional man to assist the wounded might save you many valuable lives that may be sacrificed from loss of blood for want of a surgeon conversant with the most effectual means of stanching it. ”

“ Today every ship in the United States Navy carries a large supply of dried blood plasma. Liquid plasma, ready for immediate use, is a must in every naval hospital. Every hospital corpsman, at battle stations, carries a first-aid kit which contains syrettes of morphine to be administered to all gravely injured and a supply of blood plasma and sterile needles for prompt intravenous therapy.
Blood plasma is human blood from which the blood cells have been removed. It has the advantage over whole blood in that it does not require typing. ”

“ Wassell and two chief pharmacists set up a base of medical supplies. They scoured Australia for every vitamin pill and preparation, every grain of morphine and quinine that could be bought or commandeered. These they had ready for the submarines when they started north on their relief errands.
Meanwhile, in an Australian hospital between Perth and Freemantle, the nine Americans who had come out of Java made their recovery. Not one man had become infected during that long and dangerous trip. In the fifteen days they were aboard ship, the doctor had been unable to change their dressings. ”

“ Sick call is sounded every morning about eight o'clock. This is the medical officer's morning office hours, when patients present themselves at the sick bay for examination and treatment. There is a second sick call in the evening. During the day and at night the doctor is on call for accidents or any emergency that may occur.
A modern battleship is perhaps the highest type of concentrated mobile power developed by the mind of man. It is a mass of machinery, controlled by steam and electricity which must be operated by man. ”

“ In addition to these data, a man who has been given first-aid treatment at a field dressing station or by a Navy hospital corpsman is promptly tagged before being sent on to the hospital. The tag tells the medical officer, who examines the patient, exactly what first-aid treatment has been given — morphine, sulfanilamide, or blood plasma.
It is enormously important that the first examination of the injured be made by a medical officer of long and extensive experience. Always there is shock to be looked for and guarded against. ”

“ To their 4,000 daily calories of Navy ration the lads frequently add 6,000 calories from the gedunk stand. Considering the unholy combination of sweets they stuff themselves with, between watches, it is extraordinary there aren't more cases of illness than there are. At all times, and in all places in the ship, pots of Java are brewing. A seaman will stuff himself at the gedunk stand before going on watch, drink several cups of scalding-hot coffee, and at the end of his four hours' duty take another cup or two of coffee before turning in to his hammock, to sleep like a baby. ”

“ In cases where there has been considerable hemorrhage, whole blood must be administered. But even in these cases it is often wise to begin with plasma until time permits a more careful study of the patient.
There is probably no service which the civilian can render to the fighting forces so valuable as the gift of blood.
Before the raid on Pearl Harbor, both the Army and the Navy medical officers there thought that they had sufficient dried plasma on hand for any emergency. The Naval Hospital had 500 units. A unit of plasma is 250 cc. ”

“ The Navy is particular about the sex of animals from which the meat comes. No meat from bulls, boars, stags, or cows is acceptable. Naturally, this regulation in favor of castrated animals provides a lot of jokes, but it also ensures the men aboard ship and in training camps prime meat.
As a matter of fact, the men in our Navy are the best-fed body of men anywhere in the world. The Navy ration, as laid down by Act of Congress, gives the sailor — if he eats it all — fully 4,000 calories a day. ”

“ What brings these men through these trials and dangers is not only their American intestinal fortitude, all of them are armed with knowledge. Somewhere, aboard ship, in naval training stations, or in "boot" camps, doctors wearing the Navy's blue and the gold oak leaves and silver acorns which are the insignia of the Navy Medical Corps have taught these men how to protect themselves, if possible, from infection and disease. ”

“ Across the passageway is the cruiser's hospital, or sick bay, with beds for twenty-five patients. The complement of a cruiser is about 1,200 men, so the hospital facilities more than equal those of the most progressive civilian communities. The medical staff of a cruiser usually consists of a chief medical officer, together with an assistant and a dental officer. Under these officers are several pharmacist's mates, trained as anesthetists, laboratory technicians, bacteriologists, and chemists, who give advanced first aid and care for the injured and sick. ”

“ Officers and men are engaged in hazardous occupations at all times — in peace as in war, and night and day. They have to handle boats in bad weather, work around the machinery, engine, and firerooms, drill with guns and turrets, handle ammunition, operate aircraft and submarines, and perform a thousand-and-one things which go to make up daily life at sea. At any moment you may get a man brought in for surgical treatment whose arm has been mangled in a baking machine, a case of fracture caused by a fall from a mast or down a hatch, or one with foreign bodies in the eye. ”

“ Many patients were unconscious, or too badly injured to speak. Forty-seven per cent of all the cases brought to the hospital were burned. Many were thickly coated with fuel oil. Practically all were in a state of shock.
The Navy is a stickler for records. All through a man's career in the service, whether just for a hitch or for life, two careful, up-to-the-minute, detailed accounts are kept of him. One is his service record ”

“ Just preventive housekeeping, which is one step in the Navy's great campaign of preventive medicine.
Aboard ship every man of the crew is needed all of the time. If half a dozen of them are on the sick list due to food poisoning or some other illness resulting from neglect and insanitary living conditions, their work must be divided among the other men. ”

“ With the sound of the planes, the explosions of the first bombs, and the crackle of our own anti-aircraft batteries sounding all around him, Captain Hayden gave orders to his family to keep inside the house unless it caught fire, and started on the run across the lawn to the hospital.
Waves of enemy bombers, escorted by fighter planes, were swinging in from the southeast to concentrate their attack on the heavy ships in the West, East, and Middle Lochs. It took only a few minutes after the first bomb dropped on the Fleet for the machine guns mounted on the battleships to open fire. ”

“ Java became American naval headquarters in the South Pacific. From Surabaya our ships put out in forays to try to arrest Japan's march to the south. At the time ours were the only heavy ships in those waters, all the British and Dutch naval vessels being engaged guarding convoys.
All this was going on when Dr. Wassell arrived in Surabaya. He got there on January 27, just three days after one of the first engagements in Macassar Strait and when the injured from that meeting with the enemy were beginning to arrive in Java. Admiral Hart immediately appointed Dr. Wassell to his staff. ”

“ Secondary shock develops, insidiously, some hours after injury, burns, or hemorrhage. Its outstanding feature is low blood pressure. It has been found that practically every man injured during battle is in a state of shock, either real or potential. The condition is influenced or caused by hemorrhage, tissue destruction, mental trauma, fatigue, and many other factors. Shock must receive the first attention after hemorrhage is controlled.
Fortunately, today we can afford to wait and let shock be relieved before operating. ”

“ In addition to the regular officers of the Medical Corps we have the Reserve officers — physicians in civilian practice who may be called into the Navy's service during an emergency. These Reserve officers serve in naval hospitals ashore and aboard the fighting ships under exactly the same conditions and regulations as regular Medical Corps officers. They include many of the outstanding men in the various fields of surgery, medicine, epidemiology, psychiatry, and research. ”

“ One of the gravest problems facing medical officers aboard fighting ships just now is the men's unwillingness to admit they are sick and need hospitalization. They don't want to risk missing any of the fight. On one of the cruisers which has been on duty with the Atlantic convoys, a seaman fainted one day on deck. He was taken to the sick bay for examination, which revealed a ruptured appendix and evidences of peritonitis. ”