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Show Bushnell General Hospital Minimizes the Effects of the War By O. X. MALMQIXST At the foot of the Wasatch mountains moun-tains 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 of the war are taking place. The locale is the U. S. Army's immense Bushnell general hospital. hospi-tal. A self-contained "community" of more than 7 brick buildings with a normal capacity of 2,000 beds and an emergency capacity 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. Major Contribution 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 a recent tour of press representatives, representa-tives, described the results of the treatment as dramatic in some types of infections and very encouraging en-couraging in all the cases for which the drug has been used. Colonel Robert M. Hardaway, commanding officer, and his professional pro-fessional staff, are currently being allotted one-third of the Army's supply of penicillin, which is not yet being produced in sufficient quantity to permit general use. Their primary interest and hope is -to find in the drug a weapon to reduce the morbidity and mortality mor-tality rate of bone infections, a vexing wartime' problem of the medical profession. To date their experience has been satisfactory, this type of case responding much more readily to pencillin 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 (gonorrhea. (gon-orrhea. Fourteen cases which failed to respond after an average of 52.8 days' hospitalization and treatment with the sulfa drugs, have been treated with penicilin. Within 36 hours after the treatment treat-ment was started . twelve of the cases were negative. The dosage was increased and the treatment continued. Within a week the thirteenth thir-teenth case was cured. The fourteenth four-teenth case is still in doubt. Typical Cases Typical cases in other types of infections include an officer who came into the hospital with a severe se-vere mastoid infection. He was in a deep coma, had a temperature of 105, and had failed to respond to the usual treatments. The day after penicillin treatments were started he was conscious and his temperature was 102. The next day his temperature was normal and he wanted to get up and move around. Cpl. John (Red) Kariger of Hershey, Neb., was shot through the right thigh by a Japanese sniper sni-per on Guadalcanal. By the time he reached the hospital a severe infection had developed at the fracture, a huge abcess was draining drain-ing poorly and he had lost weight to an alarming degree. After two weeks on penicillin he was able to , tolerate an .operation in which 21 pieces of dead bone , were removed. re-moved. 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 camps and combat areas, are unable to stand the stress of combat or the sudden disruptions in their pattern pat-tern of living and "blow up". Foi the most part they are suffering from a psychoneurosis which does not involve mental breakdown in the usual sense of that term. After Af-ter the acute stage has been passed they can converse rationally ration-ally and to a layman appear to be normal. Important Question The important question with respect re-spect to this group is can they be cured and returned to normal life? Lieut. Col. . Olin B. Cham-; Cham-; berlain, 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. pen-sions. Pensions, he believes, is a ; sure road to widespread "compensation" "com-pensation" neurosis. His hope is that public opinion will realize that pensions are 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 in jobs; assist them to regain confidence con-fidence and a sense of security; and to tide them over economic humps. The physical layout of the hospital, hos-pital, which was 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 with cov- |