f the Council
of National Defense and the Red Cross and in constant and helpful
contact with the medical activities of the British, French, and other
belligerents, the Surgeon General has built up the personnel of his
department and taken over from the Red Cross completely organized
base-hospital units and ambulance units, supplemented them by fresh
organizations, procured great quantities of medical supplies and
prepared on a generous scale to meet any demands of our Army in action.
Incidentally and in the course of this preparation, great numbers of
base hospital organizations, ambulance units, and additional doctors and
nurses have been placed at the disposal of the British and French
armies, and are now in the field of actual war, ministering to the
needs of our Allies. Indeed, the honor of first participation by
Americans in this war belongs to the Medical Department. In addition to
all this preparation and activity, the Surgeon General's department has
been charged with the responsibility for the study of defense against
gas attack and the preparation of such gas masks and other appliances as
can be devised to minimize its effects. The medical profession of the
country has rallied around this service. The special laboratories of the
great medical institutions have devoted themselves to the study of
problems of military medicine. New, effective, and expeditious surgical
and medical procedures have been devised and the latest defensive and
curative discoveries of medical science have been made available for the
protection and restoration of our soldiers. Far-reaching activities have
been conducted by the Medical Department here in America, involving the
supervision of plans for great base hospitals in the camps and
cantonments, the planning of convalescent and reconstruction hospitals
for invalided soldiers and anticipatory organization wherever possible
to supply relief to distress and sickness as it may arise. Moreover, the
task of the Medical Department in connection with the new Army has been
exacting. Rigid examinations have been conducted, in the first instance
by the physicians connected with the exemption boards, but later at the
camps, in order to eliminate from the ranks men whose physical condition
did not justify their retention in the military service. Many of the
rejections by the Medical Department have caused grief to high-spirited
young men not conscious of physical weakness or defect, and perhaps
ha