eans were sites of these institutions. Each
was planned as a 500-bed hospital but with provision for enlargement to
1,000 beds if needed.

These hospitals were not the last step in the return of the wounded
soldiers to civil life. When the soldiers were able to take up
industrial training, further provision was ready.

Arrangements were made by the Department of Military Orthopedics to care
for soldiers, so far as orthopedics (the prevention of deformity) was
concerned, continuously until they were returned to civil life.
Orthopedic surgeons were attached to the medical force near the firing
line and to the different hospitals back to the base orthopedic hospital
which was established within one hundred miles of the firing line. In
this hospital, in addition to orthopedic surgical care, there was
equipment for surgical reconstruction work and "curative workshops" in
which men acquired ability to use injured members while doing work
interesting and useful in itself. This method supplanted the old and
tiresome one of prescribing a set of motions for a man to go through
with no other purpose than to re-acquire use of his injured part.

Instructors and examiners for all the troops were furnished by the
Department of Military Orthopedic Surgery. A number of older and more
experienced surgeons acted as instructors and supervisors for each of
the groups into which the army was divided.

A peculiar condition arising from the use of heavy artillery in the war
was that called "shell-shock."

The most pathetic wrecks of war were soldiers suffering from shattered
nerves. Paris had many of them. They appeared to be normal. But they
were human wrecks.

Shell-shock or the aftermath of illness from wounds left them in
weakened health, subject to violent heart attacks. Most of them lacked
energy and perseverance. They became awkward, like big children. If
employment was found for them--for many had large families to
support--they quickly lost their jobs through apathy or collapse.

A society in Paris did everything possible to relieve the sufferings of
these victims of the war. It operated with the authorization of the
French Government under the name "L'Assistance aux Blesses Nerveux de
la Guerre."

American hospitals after the war contained many of these cases. Some of
the victims became incurably insane.

Besides the noble work done by the great army of American physicians,
surgeons and nurses, in caring for soldiers and s