FAMOUSIMEDICAL MEN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 228, 28 September 1942, Page 1

FAMOUSIMEDICAL MEN

ELABORATE EQUIPMENT Sydney. Sept. 19.1 One of America’s most brilliant col-1 lections of surgeons and physicians is I gathered in a small northern town, | ready to operate in what will be one I

of the largest hospitals, civil or mili-1 tary, in the Southern Hemisphere. They are members of the famous i Harvard (U.S.A.) unit, and each is a professor in his particular branch of medical science. The hospital is being built on a slight rise overlooking a fertile valley. A temporary storehouse holds thousands of pounds’ worth of medicines and the latest, most elaborate scientific equipment the world can offer. The hospital is being rushed up first to 1000-oed capacity, then to double that number. Eventually it will cover 40 acres of land. To it will go members of the American fighting forces needing the most skilled curative or neuropathic treatment. Special hospital planes, capable of carrying about 30 cases, will fly them from advanced field hospitals, where preliminary treatment has been carried out. Under the American system, large universities leading in medicine, nominate units for staffing army hospitals. These units can be called upon at short notice and sent anywhere in the world. The Harvard unit is regarded as one of the finest bodies of medical men ever to have left the United States. The staff, which is led by Major A. Thorndike, jun., includes members of well-known Boston families, and embraces surgeons specialising in general operations, septic surgery, orthopaedic surgery, ear, eye, nose and throat, neurosis, urology, X-ray, and, on the medical side, in communicable diseases, cardiac troubles, gastritis, intestinal, tropical medicine, and neuropsychiatric treatment. Special attention is being paid to mental and nervous rehabilitation of sufferers from war shocks, which the peacefulness of natural surroundings will aid. The specialists are most interested in the latest British experiments in using gramophone records of shrieking bombs, human cries, gunfire, and sirens to make victims relive hours of terror and know that they are not in actual danger.