Books and Documents

SPECIAL STUDIES

THE DEMANDS OF
HUMANITY: ARMY MEDICAL
DISASTER RELIEF

by
Gaines M. Foster

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
UNITED STATES ARMY
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1983

SPECIAL STUDIES SERIES

David F. Trask, General Editor

Advisory Committee
(As of 1 January 1982)

James C. Olson University of Missouri	Joseph E. Harris Howard University
Maj. Gen. Quinn H. Becker Deputy Surgeon General, USA	John H. Hatcher The Adjutant General Center
Maj. Gen. John B. Blount U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command	Morten Jay Luvaas Allegheny College
Brig. Gen. Dallas C. Brown, Jr. U.S. Army War College	James O'Neill National Archives and Records Service
Richard D. Challener Princeton University	John Shy University of Michigan
Col. Roy K. Flint U.S. Military Academy	Col. William A. Stofft U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Arthur L. Funk University of Florida	Betty M. Unterberger Texas A. & M. University

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Brig. Gen. James L. Collins, Jr., Chief of MilitaryHistory

Chief Historian Chief, Histories Division Editor in Chief

David F. Trask Col. James W. Dunn John Elsberg

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Contents

FOREWORD

THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

1. INTRODUCTION

2. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: PRECEDENTS

The Emergence of Federal Disaster Assistance
The Role of the Medical Department

3. EMERGING MISSIONS: COMBATING EPIDEMICS ABROAD

Sanitary and Organizational Reform
Combating Epidemics

4. ESTABLISHING THE MISSION: VOLCANOES, EARTHQUAKES,TORNADOES, AND FLOODS, 1898-1917

Changes in the Domestic Scene and the San Francisco Earthquake
Additional Relief Operations and Formal Recognition of the Mission

5. DISEASE IN THE AFTERMATH OF WAR: DISASTER AID TOPOLAND AND RUSSIA AFTER WORLD WAR I

Postwar Relief and America's Sense of Humanitarian Mission
Typhus in Poland
Famine in Russia

6. RELIEF ROLE IN TRANSITION: ASSISTANCE AT HOME ANDABROAD, 1918-1939

Confusion over the Army's Disaster Relief Role
Reevaluation and Relief in the Thirties
Toward New Relief Roles

7. DOMESTIC ASSISTANCE UNDER CIVILIAN COORDINATION,1945-1976

The Texas City Explosion
Creation of a Federal Relief Bureaucracy
Medical Relief Missions of the Fifties and Sixties
Federal Reorganization and Minor Medical Missions of the Seventies

8. ACTIVISM ABROAD: FOREIGN DISASTER RELIEF, 1945-1976

Relief in the Early Postwar Period
Establishing a Relief System and the Activism of the Early Sixties
Increasing Problems in Foreign Disaster Relief Operations

9. CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE