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Show Bushnell Minimizes Effects of War Huge Army Hospital Replaces Peach And Cherry Orchards; Using Penicillin, The New Wonder Drug, With Much Success Cy 0. N. Malmquist At the foot of the Wasatch mountains south of Brigham City, in a peaceful spot which a short time ago was a peach and cherry orchard, some of the dramatic and important incidents in-cidents of the war are taking place. mental breakdown in the usual sense of that term. After the acute stage has been passed they can converse rationally and to a layman appear to be normal. The important question with respect to this group is can they be cured and returned to normal life? Lieutenant Colonel Olin B. Chamberlain, chief of the section, thinks that a large majority of them can be, if the public doesn't try to dispose of them by voting pensions. Pensions, he believes, is a sure road to widespread "compensation" neurosis. His hope is that public opinion will realize that pensions tare not a solution to the problem; that communities will recognize now their responsibility to these men; that steps will be taken to help them find economic independence independ-ence in jobs; assist them to regain re-gain confidence and a sense of security; and to tide them over economic humps. The physical layout of the hospital, hos-pital, which as built in little more than six months, dwarfs all other institutions of this type in the state and is one of the Army's large general hospitals. The main buildings are connected connect-ed with covered walkways, so that patients can go to one of the four mess halls, the recreation recrea-tion rooms, the post exchange, the library and other facilities without being exposed to the weather- It is virtually a self-sufficient self-sufficient community, having its own power plant, sewage dis- Eosal plant, incinerator, ice plant, akery, chapel, postoffice, railroad rail-road station, utility shops, warehouses, ware-houses, cold storage facilities and laundry. The locale is the U. S. Army s immense Rushnell general hospital. hospi-tal. A self-contained "community'' "communi-ty'' of more than 7 brick buildings build-ings with a normal capacity of 2,000 beds and an emergency capacity ca-pacity of 4,000 beds. The hospital is more notable for the work it is doing to repair or minimize the effects of war than for its size- One of its major contributions to date is the building up of the most extensive experience in this country with the use of the new wonder drug, penicillin. Medical directors of the institution, during dur-ing a recent tour of press representatives, repre-sentatives, described the results of the treatment as dramatic in some type9 of infections and very encouraging in all the cases for which the drug has been used. Colonel Robert M. Hardaway, commanding officer, and his professional pro-fessional staff, arc currently being be-ing allotted one-third of the army's supply of penicillin, which is not yet being produced in sufficient suf-ficient quantity to permit general use. Their primary interest and hope is to find in the drug a weapon to reduce the morbidity and mortality rate of bone infections, in-fections, a vexing wartime problem prob-lem of the medical profession. To date their experience has been satisfactory, this type of case responding much more readily to penicillin than any other known type of treatment. A result which can properly' be described as spectacular has been obtained in the use of the drug to combat gonococcus infection in-fection (gonorrhea). Fourteen cases which failed to respond after an average of 52.8 days' hospitalization and treatment with the sulfa drugs, have been Equipment throughout is the best obtainable. But the chief pride of Colonel Hardaway is not the physical plant but the professional staff, the most vital element of a good hospital. The physicians, all of whom have entered the war for the duration, were outstanding specialists in their respective communities or members of medical me-dical college faculties. Being temporarily called upon to make large financial sacrifices, they are obtaining a wealth of experience ex-perience to compensate for that. And they are as intensely interested inter-ested in and as attentive to their work as if they were making many times an army officer's pay in the most exacting private practice. The tour of the hospital was one of a series to the Army Service Ser-vice Forces installations in this area, sponsored by the Ninth Service Command. The visits were personally directed by Major Ma-jor A. E. Gilbert, Ninth Service Command Public Relations officer. of-ficer. o treated with penicillin. Within 36 hours after the treatment was started twelve of the cases were negative. The dosage was increased in-creased and the treatment continued. con-tinued. Within a week the thirteenth thir-teenth case was cured. The fourteenth four-teenth case is still in doubt. Typical cases in other types of infections include an officer who came into the rospital with a severe mastoid infection. He was in a deep coma, had a temperature temp-erature of 105, and had failed to respond to the usual treatments. The day after penicillin treatments treat-ments were started he was conscious con-scious and his temperature was 102. The next days his temperature tempera-ture was normal and he wanted to get up and move around. Corporal John (Red) Kariger of Hershey, Neb., was shot through the right thigh by a Japanese Jap-anese sniper on Guadalcanal. By the time he reached the hospital a severe infection had developed develop-ed at the fracture, a huge abcess was draining poorly and he had lost weight to an alarming degree. de-gree. After two weeks on penicillin penic-illin he was able to tolerate an operation in which 21 pieces of dead bone were removed. He is now well on the road to recovery. Approximately one-third of the hospital capacity is devoted to the neuropsychiatric division (nervous and mental cases.) The patients, who come from training train-ing camps and combat areas, are unable to stand the stress of combat or the sudden disruptions in their pattern of living and "blow up." For the most part they are suffering from a psycho-neurosis psycho-neurosis which docs not involve |