CHAPTER I
Composition of the Medical Department
INTRODUCTION
In the years immediately following World War II, changes in organization and policy were made that should eliminate or modify some of the personnel difficulties that make up much of the subject matter of this book. Important among these postwar developments is the centering of responsibility for health and medical aspects of mobilization planning and for the maintenance of effective relations with the public health and medical professions at the level of the Secretary of Defense. Other improvements include the continuously current professional classification of both civilian and Army doctors; adjustments in rank and pay of medical and dental officers; the extension of compulsory military service to special groups; desegregation throughout the Army; the appointment of women doctors in the Regular Army Medical Corps, and of male officers in the Army Nurse Corps; and the establishment of standards for graduates of foreign medical schools. All of these changes deal with areas in which the problems of the Medical Department differ in kind or in degree from those of the Army as a whole-problems accentuated by the same wartime conditions that demanded they be resolved.
At peak strength in 1944, the Department comprised approximately 700,000 military personnel, about 8.5 percent of the entire Army. This figure does not include a substantial number of individuals from other branches of the military service who served under Medical Department command-among them chaplains, engineers, and about a fifth of the members of the Women`s Army Corps. In addition, the Department employed perhaps as many as 150,000 civilians in the Zone of Interior and overseas. In both areas, some 80,000 prisoners of war were also detailed to the Medical Department to assist in its work. The variety of personnel was reflected particularly in the number of officer components. Before the end of the war, there were nine of these-the Medical, Dental, Veterinary, Sanitary, Medical Administrative, Pharmacy, and Nurse Corps, the Hospital Dietitians, and the Physical Therapists.
Although the responsibilities of the Department were administrative as well as medical, the availability of doctors was the major limiting factor in officer procurement throughout the war. The output of the medical schools was never great enough to meet the demand, nor was it possible to draw enough physicians from civilian practice to make up the deficit.
The functions of the Medical Department were preventive as well as curative, and extended not only to men and women but also to the relatively small
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number of animals-chiefly dogs, horses, and mules-that wereused by the Army. The preventive program included sanitation in connection withmesses, waste disposal, water supplies, and housing; measures for the control ofvenereal disease; immunization against many common and some uncommon diseases;personal hygiene; food inspection; proper nutrition; and insect and rodentcontrol. The program also extended to epidemiological studies, and thesupervision of public health in occupied territories. Another essentiallypreventive function of the Medical Department was the physical examination ofall persons entering or leaving the Army and of many on numerous occasions inbetween. In addition to research of a strictly clinical nature, the MedicalDepartment was required to engage in "research and experimentationconnected with the development and improvement of Medical Department material,equipment, and supplies."1
At the higher levels, administrative functions, too, wereperformed by doctors, since Medical Corps officers alone could commandorganizations dealing with the treatment, hospitalization, and evacuation ofpatients, except in an emergency when no such officers were available.2Medical Corps officers also performed staff functions such as directing themedical service of nonmedical units, advising commanders and their staffs onmedical matters. The commander of every nonmedical organization the size of abattalion or larger normally had a medical officer on his staff. Specific staffresponsibilities extended to medical supply, training, and the maintenance ofclinical and allied medical records.
Although not legally bound to do so, the Medical Department,insofar as practical, had always cared for Army dependents and for certaincivilians overseas. This was extended during the war to include prisoners of warand patients belonging to the U.S. Navy, other Federal agencies, Americanenterprises engaged in the war effort, and Allied forces when their treatmentelsewhere was impracticable. This particular demand on the Medical Departmentwas offset to some extent by the medical service of our Navy and by those ofAllied countries, especially Great Britain.
In the 2 years before Pearl Harbor, the Medical Department,like the Army in general, attained a size unprecedented in peacetime. Theproblems related to this growth were certainly more difficult than any theDepartment had encountered since the First World War. Starting with a smallcomplement of officers, nurses, and enlisted men and a personnel organizationmore suited to the needs of peace than of war, the Medical Department had tocarry out the process of rapid expansion at the same time that it adjusted itsrecruiting effort to the quotas permitted by the War Department. The expansioninvolved building up the Reserves as well as the active forces, and was partlyachieved by re-creating a system of unit reserves, or affiliated units. Inenlarging its strength, the Medical Department encountered further problems,
1Army Regulations No. 40-5, 15 Jan.1926.
2Army Regulations No. 40-10, Changes No. 1, 25 July 1935.
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among others the difficulty-at a time when civilian medicalservice was more than ever in demand-of inducing professional people to enterthe Army in large numbers and of keeping them in it once they had been secured.Partly as the result of these difficulties, the Medical Department had toimprove its methods of classifying and assigning personnel so as to make thebest use of its manpower. Meanwhile, the Department had to consider how orwhether to utilize certain special groups, such as Negroes (doctors, dentists,and nurses) and graduates of foreign medical schools.
The first 2 years of war likewise had their special characteristics. Perhapsthe most salient feature was that procurement became more important than it wasbefore or afterward; the Medical Department, like the rest of the Army, obtainedmost of its personnel at this time. The advent of war made the affiliated unitsavailable for use, and the process of bringing them into service during 1942 and 1943 raised new problems of personnel administration.At this time, also, the final steps were taken to conserve the supply ofstudents of medicine for the future use of the Army and of the civiliancommunity.
In late 1943, definite ceilingswere placed on certain important categories of medical personnel. As a result,the problem from then on became not so much one of obtaining more personnel asof using the men and women already in service as efficiently as possible.Measures for the latter purpose were developed or initiated during this period,even though they were carried still further later on. Thus, at the verybeginning of the war, certain congressional enactments and WarDepartment directives relaxed the physical standards required for officers,extended the term of military service, and enabled the Army to deploy itspersonnel more as it saw fit.
Also, during the first 2 years of the war, the system of rank and promotionArmy-wide was basically remodelled. The only pay increase of the war forenlisted men and officers was provided by Congress in 1942. Late in the same year, two new female components of theMedical Department were created-the Physical Therapists and the HospitalDietitians-and in 1943 a new maleofficer component, the Pharmacy Corps. These were the only Medical Departmentcomponents added during the war.
Also, toward the end of 1942, aCommittee to Study the Medical Department of the Army examined, as one of itsfields of inquiry, various phases of medical personnel administration. TheCommittee, appointed by the Secretary of War and consisting of six civilian andtwo retired Army doctors, a hospital administrator, and a representative ofHeadquarters, Army Service Forces, ranged over a wide area in the course of itsinvestigation including, besides personnel matters, the organization of theSurgeon General`s Office and its place in the War Department structure, medicalsupply, and the efficiency of Medical Department installations.3
3For a full account of the Committee and all aspects of itswork, see Medical Department, United States Army. Organization andAdministration in World War II. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,1963, pp. 145-185.
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In certain other fields of personnel administration,developments occurred which continued into the later war years. Thus, theorganization and responsibilities for personnel management began to changeradically in a number of ways shortly after the beginning of the war, but didnot reach their final form until later. During this period, also, the MedicalDepartment considerably widened its use of special groups, but without arrivingat a final solution of the problem.
The later war years were marked by several new trends,beginning in the summer and fall of 1943. In the realm of organization andresponsibility for personnel affairs in the Zone of Interior, there was atendency to revise the organization of the Surgeon General`s Office so as toobtain more detailed knowledge of personnel resources; at the same time, themovement continued to centralize in his Office more control over personnel, andalso to restore the personnel authority of the service command surgeons, all ofwhich reversed the trend of the early war years. In this matter of procurement,while that process continued to occupy much of the Medical Department`sattention, it was restricted not only by the ceilings imposed on Medical andDental Corps strength but by the greater difficulty of obtaining doctors,nurses, and enlisted men. As a result, more emphasis was placed on measures tooffset these restrictions on procurement. For one thing, there was a greatertendency to supplement the categories of personnel in short supply-or to replacethem in certain kinds of work-with other types of personnel more readilyobtainable. There were also new estimates of personnel requirements and furtherimprovements in utilization. At the same time that these developments weretaking place, policies concerning promotion and rank were revised, whileconditions surrounding the use of Negroes and Japanese-Americans also changed.The outstanding feature of this period in the field of personnel, however, isthat the Medical Department adjusted itself to the exigencies of war by moreintensive cultivation of the resources at hand. Nevertheless, long before theend of the war, the business of adjustment to a restricted area of war andultimately to a peacetime situation came under consideration; the problems ofredeployment and demobilization seemed to press for an even quicker settlementthan those of worldwide war itself.
MILITARY COMPONENTS
At the head of the Medical Department before, during, andafter the war was The Surgeon General. A Federal statute provided that he shouldhave the rank of major general and should be appointed by the President with theadvice and consent of the Senate.4 A further statute provided for fourassistants, appointed in the same way, with the rank of brigadier general, oneof whom must be an officer in the Dental Corps.5
4 41 Stat. 766.
552 Stat. 8. The law, approved on 29 January 1938, was maderetroactive to 1 July 1937.
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Prewar Period, 1939-41
Until the passage of the Selective Training and Service Act on 16 September1940, the Army contained three traditional components: The Regular Army, theReserves, and the National Guard. The Regular Army comprised officers andenlisted men who were on active duty at all times; the Reserves were intended tomeet the need for additional officers and enlisted men during an early period ofmobilization; and the National Guard was designed to serve in case of emergencyor actual hostilities. Both the Reserves and National Guard were organized intounits similar to those of the Regular Army, but the Reserve units were largelypaper ones.
After the passage of the Selective Service Act, the Armycontained a body of officers and enlisted men who were referred to simply as"Army of the United States personnel"; that is, officers commissionedin the Army of the UnitedStates but not necessarily in any of the components just mentioned, and enlistedmen not designated as members of one of these three components.6During the war, this Army of the United States personnel came toconstitute by far the largest part of the Army.
Prior to World War II, the Medical Department contained seven militarycomponents-five officer corps whose members held full commissioned rank (theMedical, Dental, Veterinary, Sanitary, and Medical Administrative Corps), onewhose members held relative rank (the Army Nurse Corps), and a body of enlistedmen.
In 1939, all Medical Department officer corps except theSanitary Corps were represented in the Regular Army, the National Guard, andthe Reserves; the Sanitary Corps existed only in the Reserves. Reserve officerstook correspondence courses, upon the completion of which they were awardedcertificates of capacity entitling them to promotion when they had served theprescribed time in grade. Many of the older officers were men who hadtransferred to the Reserve Corps after World War I. Others had been commissioned upon the completion of professionaltraining, having taken the prescribed training in the Reserve Officers` TrainingCorps units in medical schools. Medical Department officers and enlisted men ofthe National Guard had considerable experience with military medicine throughtheir year-round armory-instruction program and the extensive training provided at camps each summer. The RegularArmy had a complement of nurses, the National Guard had none, while the Reserveof the Nurse Corps consisted of nurses registered with the American National RedCross. The Regular Army, National Guard, and Reserves each had a complementof Medical Department enlisted men.
Prior to the establishment of the CCC (Civilian ConservationCorps), only small numbers of Medical Department Reserve officers served onactive duty for longer periods than the usual 14-day tour each year. After theinitiation of
6Many Regular Armyofficers held temporary commissions with higher rank in the Army of the UnitedStates. In the War Department statistics, the term "AUS enlistedpersonnel" is reserved for volunteers in that category; others are listedseparately as "selectees."
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the CCC, however, medical, dental, and veterinary officerswere assigned to it in substantial numbers, and during the fiscal year ending on30 June 1939, a total of 889 Reserve officers were on duty with the corps.Thereafter, Reserve officers so engaged, instead of serving on active militaryduty were to serve as contract surgeons or as civilian employees.7
The Medical Corps
The Medical Corps was the original component of the MedicalDepartment and remained the core of that organization. As it consisted only ofofficers who held the degree of doctor of medicine from an acceptable college oruniversity and who had passed the required examinations, its professional dutiescould be defined mainly as those incident to the practice of military medicine.Medical officers also performed certain command and staff functions, as alreadymentioned.8
Both professional and administrative duties ordinarily assigned to members ofthe Medical Corps were also shared on occasion by contract surgeons, although nofirm determination was ever made as to their actual legal status in the MedicalDepartment. They spanned the military and civilian components, being deprived ofcertain advantages of military service but sharing in some of the civilian ones.In the early days of the Medical Department, they were used extensively even onforeign service, and from this group, many outstanding members of the RegularArmy were recruited. In the interim between the wars, they furnished the onlymedical service provided to troops stationed at arsenals and armories throughoutthe country and gave emergency treatment to the civilians employed at thesestations. Some served on a full-time, others on a part-time basis, but the payeither way was relatively small. They had a small complement of enlisted men whousually served long periods at one station. Both the contract surgeon and hisenlisted assistants were held in high regard by the officers and their families.Children, it is said, would often run to the infirmary for treatment of minorinjuries, or for comfort, instead of going home. Later, many contract surgeonswere used to furnish medical care to the enrollees of the Civilian ConservationCorps. During the war, they were to make a notable contribution at depots andindustrial plants under Army control.
The Dental Corps
The Dental Corps, established in 1911, was responsible for the dental serviceof the Army. Members of the corps ordinarily were assigned duties directlyconnected with the prevention and treatment of dental diseases and deficiencies.They were also declared to be eligible for employment in other duties determinedby the needs of the service and the training and experience of the officers
7Annual Report of The Surgeon General, U.S. Army,Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939, p. 183.
8Army Regulations No. 40-10, 9 Jan. 1924.
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concerned.9 Each officer of the corps was a graduate of anacceptable dental college. The dental officer who served as one of the fourassistants to The Surgeon General10 administeredthe dental service of the Army and headed the Dental Division of the SurgeonGeneral`s Office.
The Veterinary Corps
The Veterinary Corps, created by the National Defense Act of1916, required its officers to be graduates of approved veterinary schools.Their duties fell into two general classes-those pertaining to the inspection offoods of animal origin procured or used by the Army and those having to do withthe care and management of Army animals. The members also trained and directedthe enlisted personnel of the Medical Department assigned for duty to the corps.The inspection of foods rather than animal care was the principal activity ofVeterinary Corps officers in World War II. This inspection, in the United Statesand overseas, covered the sanitary and other quality factors in foods of animalorigin during their procurement, storage, shipment, issue, and other handling bythe Army. Only veterinary officers commanded veterinary units.11
The Medical Administrative Corps
While the duties of Medical Administrative Corps officerswere nowhere stated in Army regulations, an act of 24 June 1936 provided thatappointments to the Regular Army component thereafter should be made from pharmacists who were graduates of recognized schools or colleges of pharmacy.12But neither this component nor the one which absorbed itin 1943-the Pharmacy Corps-was ever made up exclusively of pharmacists, nor wastraining in pharmacy ever made a prerequisite to commissioning in either theReserve or Army of the United States sections of the corps. Most memberstherefore performed a variety of other duties, serving, for example, asadjutant, medical supply officer, mess officer, and training officer.
The Sanitary Corps
The Sanitary Corps Reserve had no members on active duty atthe beginning of 1939. Qualifications for appointment were possession of adegree signifying completion of a 4-year technical or scientific college coursein the specialty for which the candidate was selected and 3 years` experience ina "highly specialized occupation or scientific specialty pertaining to thefunctions of the Medical Department such as chemistry, food and nutrition,hospital architecture, procurement and manufacture of medical supplies, psy-
9Army Regulations No. 40-15, 20 Apr. 1939. This eligibility was eliminated from the regulation in the revision of 8 August 1945.
10See footnote 5, p. 4.
11Army Regulations No. 605-20, 1939, and Army Regulations No. 40-2260, 1939.
1249Stat. 1902.
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chology,13public health, sanitary engineering, and other appropriate vocations." Inlieu of a college education, the candidate might present evidence of sufficientgeneral and technical knowledge gained by study, training, and years ofexperience to demonstrate his fitness for the corps. The requirement becamesomewhat more rigid in 1940; nevertheless,the prewar conditions for appointment have been described as "very looselydrawn."14 In 1942, however, it became necessary for a sanitary engineer or anentomologist entering the corps to possess not only the appropriate academicdegree but 4 yearsof satisfactory experience. About 2 years later, the pressing need for personnelcaused a cut in the experience requirement to 2 years. Afterward, the processesof the Army Specialized Training Program replaced these requirements. Members ofthe Sanitary Corps, besides performing duties appropriate to their specialtraining, came to be used frequently to relieve Medical Corps officers ofcertain administrative duties.
The Army Nurse Corps
At the outbreak of the war, the Army Nurse Corps consisted ofa superintendent, assistant superintendents, chief nurses, and nurses. Until 1944,when the nurses achieved full commissioned status, allheld "relative rank,"15 withsome of the rights and privileges accorded commissioned officers. To beprofessionally qualified for appointment to the corps, the applicant had to be aregistered nurse with at least 2 years of general hospital training orequivalent experience.16 Theduties of nurses, defined in detail by Army regulations, were the customaryfunctions of hospital nurses, with the additional ones of supervising andadministering the nursing service-which included responsibility for overseeingthe work of enlisted personnel serving on the wards.
The Nurse Corps was composed entirely of women, although, inlate 1942, asuggestion was made that men should be appointed to it for service inpsychiatric and genitourinary wards.17 Towardthe end of the war, after the nurses had attained full commissioned rank, therewas some agitation in favor of appointing men tothe corps for general nursing service, but the Army argued against itsuccessfully on the ground that the performance of certain
13Army Regulations No. 140-33, 30 July 1936.Psychology was omitted from the list in Army Regulations No. 140-38, 15 Dec.1940.
14Hardenbergh, W. A.: Organization and Administrationof Sanitary Engineering Division. [Official record.]
15"Relative rank" asofficially defined meant "comparative rank or position of authority amongofficers holding the same grade" (War Department Technical Manual 20-205,Dictionary of U.S. Army Terms, 18 Jan. 1944). Unofficially, the term generallydenoted something less than full military rank. For convenience, it is used inthe latter sense in this volume.
16Army Regulations No. 40-20, 31 Dec.1934, with changes thereto. Although the wording of this regulation was changedsubsequently in such a way that it could be interpreted to mean that formaltraining could be entirely replaced by experience, there is reason to believethat only applicants having formal training were appointed. Also, therequirement that applicants for the "permanent establishment"had to be registered nurses was omitted, perhaps inadvertently, from the issueof the same regulation for 5 April 1943, but was restored by Changes No. 6, 22June 1944.
17Report of the Committee to Study the Medical Department of the Army, 1942.
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nursing tasks would ruin a man`s usefulness as an officer inthe eyes of enlisted men.18 Since World War II, male nurses have beenaccepted, first in the Reserve and more recently in the Regular Army, where theyhave amply proved their worth.
Enlisted personnel
The enlisted component, unlike other components of theMedical Department, had no special entrance requirements; qualifications weresimply those for admission to the enlisted ranks of the Army as a whole. Certainpractices were adopted which can hardly be called real exceptions to this rule,such as the recruitment of technicians by the Women`s Army Corps for the use ofthe Medical Department. The Army also made an effort, by its classificationand assignment system, to channel enlisted personnel with appropriate experienceinto the Medical Department. But the vast majority came into the Department withno such special background and had to be trained after they arrived.
World War II, 1941-45
The strength of the Medical Department on 7 December 1941was approximately 131,600 (table 1).19Throughout the rapid expansion that followedAmerican entry into the war, the five original male officer corps retained theirsections in the Regular Army, the Reserves, and the National Guard. The NurseCorps, too, retained its Regular Army section, and nurses also began to come onduty as members of the Reserve. Eventually, officers of all of these corpswere directly commissioned in the Army of the United States.
New military components were added to the Department in the course of thewar, the hospital dietitians and the physical therapists in 1942, and the Pharmacy Corps in1943. Dietitiansand therapists, like the nurses, at first held only relative rank, but all threegroups achieved commissioned status in 1944.
Dietitians and physical therapists
The administrative histories of the dietitian and physicaltherapist groups, including the process by which their members attained officerstatus, are so similar that they can be considered together.20
18Letter, The Deputy Surgeon General, toMiss Inez D. Mooney, Houston, Tex., 27 Feb. 1945.
19Strength figures for the war years vary depending on whether theyare based on records kept in the Surgeon General`s Office or on records of TheAdjutant General.
20Unless otherwise noted, the account which follows isbased on (1) the manuscript history of each group written by its director and(2) letter, Col. Emma E. Vogel, USA (Ret.), to Col. J. B. Coates, Jr., MC, USA,Director, Historical Unit, U.S. Army Medical Service, 28 Mar. 1956. Both groupsare treated in greater detail in a forthcoming volume in this series dealingwith the Army Medical Specialist Corps, into which they were eventuallyabsorbed.
10-15
[Office of The Surgeon General`s data in Arabicnumerals; The Adjutant General`s data in italics]
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Both dietitians and physical therapists had worked in Armyhospitals in World War I as civilians. In the years between the two World Wars,they continued to be employed as civilians in the Medical Department, beingassigned in small numbers to all of the general and large station hospitals. Inthe early 1920`s, training courseswere established at Walter Reed General Hospital, Washington, D.C., and thegraduates of these courses filled most of the vacancies in Army hospitals from 1922to 1939. In 1938, both dietitians and physical therapists were brought intothe competitive civil service system.
After Pearl Harbor, it became apparent that civil serviceregisters could not fill the demand for these two categories and thatrecruitment, administrative control, and professional supervision should rest inthe Office of The Surgeon General. In January 1942, MissHelen C. Burns, Chief Dietitian at Walter Reed General Hospital, and Miss EmmaE. Vogel, Chief Physical Therapist there, were assigned to the Surgeon General`sOffice on a part-time basis. Eight months later, both were appointedsuperintendents of their respective groups and part time became full time.
The need for military status for dietitians and physicaltherapists became more imperative as they assumed positions of greaterresponsibility in which they supervised military personnel. As civilianemployees, they could not be ordered to stations outside the United States,where their services were badly needed, although they could volunteer foroversea service. Hospital units designated for oversea service, as well as thosein the United States, seldom had their full quota in either category.
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On 22 December 1942, an act of Congress21providedthat female dietetic and physical therapy personnel should be members of theMedical Department for the duration of the war and 6 months thereafter. Theirrank was to be relative, but they were given the pay (including longevity pay),allowances for subsistence and rental of quarters, and mileage and other travelallowances for commissioned officers, without dependents, of the Regular Army ingrades from second lieutenant through captain.22 Earlyin January 1943, on recommendation of The Surgeon General, the Secretary of Warappointed the directors of these two groups in the relative rank of major, thefirst appointments under the new law. It was not until June 1944 that Congressgranted full commissioned rank in the Army of the United States to the threefemale components of the Medical Department-nurses, dietitians, and physicaltherapists.23 This actionplaced them on a par with all other commissioned officers, male and female. Itconferred on them certain important rights and privileges not granted by theirprevious status.24 Thesame law also gave the members of the Army Nurse Corps full officer status.
Pharmacy Corps
Unlike the dietitians and physical therapists, pharmacists in the Armyalready had military status, most of them being enlisted men. In the late1930`s, Congress had decreed that only pharmacists should be eligible for theMedical Administrative Corps of the Regular Army and that the strength of thiscomponent should be limited to 16 members.25 Since the law did not provide thatthe corps should be reduced immediately, the desired strength was achievedthrough attrition. Pharmacists, however, wanted not only a larger officer corpsbut one bearing their name, and their insistence increased following Americanentrance into the war.26But Maj. Gen. James C. Magee (fig. 1), The Surgeon General, did not favorlegislation of a permanent character during the emergency and stated that"no purpose would be served by legislation affecting a minor component * ** atthis time." He further stated that regulations assured the properdispensing of drugs and prescriptions and that "the organization of aPharmacy Corps to discharge this responsibility is not indicated." Tocharges that pharmaceutical service in the Army was "deplorable,"
2156 Stat. 1072.
22Army Regulations No. 40-25, 9 Apr. 1943, formulated procedures andrequirements for appointment to both groups and for personnel administration inthem.
23(1) 58 Stat. 324. (2) Executive Order 9454, 10 July1944.
24In 1947, an act of Congress (61 Stat. 41) combinedthe dietitians, physical therapists, and occupational therapists (who had neverhad officer status) into a new Regular Army element of the Medical Department,the Women`s Medical Specialist Corps.
25(1) See footnote 12, p. 7. (2) 53 Stat. 559.
26(1) Letter, Hon. J. P. Wolcott, to Secretary of War,13 Oct. 1942. (2) Letter, H. M. Burlage, Professor of Pharmacy, University ofNorth Carolina, 17 Oct. 1942. (3) Postal card, Pat O`Malley (no address given)to General McAfee (SGO), 30 Nov. 1942.
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FIGURE 1.-Maj. Gen. James C. Magee, USA, The Surgeon General, 1 June 1939-31 May 1943.
he replied that if any specific instances warranting such charges werebrought to his attention, he would request an investigation.27
Despite the Surgeon General`s opposition, Congress passed alaw, approved by President Roosevelt on 12 July 1943, which established aPharmacy Corps in the Regular Army to comprise 72 officers in grades from secondlieutenant through colonel. Officers in the Regular Army Medical AdministrativeCorps, pharmacist and nonpharmacist alike (there were 58) were to be transferredto the new corps and carried there in addition to the 72 authorized.28The effect was to abolish the Regular Army MedicalAdministrative Corps. Unlike the law giving military status to the dietitiansand physical therapists, this law made no mention of a director for the newcorps and The Surgeon General did not name one. The strength authorized for thecorps permitted only a few of the pharmacists then in the Army to havecommissioned status.
27(1) Letter, Maj. Gen. James C.Magee, to L. E. Foster, General Manager, Chamber of Commerce, Birmingham, Ala.,6 Nov. 1942. (2) Letter, Assistant to The Surgeon General (Brig. Gen. Larry B.McAfee), to L. E. Foster, General Manager, Chamber of Commerce, Birmingham,Ala., 11 Nov. 1942. (3) Letter, Assistant to The Surgeon General (Brig. Gen.Larry B. McAfee), to Dr. H. M. Burlage, Professor of Pharmacy, University ofNorth Carolina, 5 Nov. 1942.
28(1) 57 Stat. 430. (2) Regular Army Strength Book,Military Personnel Division, Office of The Surgeon General, U.S. Army.
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CIVILIAN COMPONENTS
Civilians served in many types of Medical Departmentsinstallations. In theZone of Interior, the majority were employed in hospitals and medical supplydepots but they were also employed in the Office of The Surgeon General, theoffices of other command surgeons, in laboratories, and elsewhere. Overseaactivities of civilian personnel, most of them nationals of the countries inwhich they served, were similarly widespread, extending even into the combatzones. Among the thousands who were employed in many parts of the world were tobe found men and women of every degree of skill from laborers and trainedartisans to technicians and even to physicians classified as specialists.
An important group of civilian workers for the MedicalDepartment who received no Government pay were members of the American NationalRed Cross. The Red Cross, in addition to giving certain types of assistance tothe able-bodied members of the Armed Forces, assigned many of its personnel toArmy hospitals, both in the Zone of Interior and overseas. In the hospitals,Red Cross workers rendered the patient various kinds of nonmedical service, suchas providing assistance in the adjustment of social, economic, and familyproblems that might otherwise retard recovery; obtaining social histories,including medical information, upon the request of medical officers, to be usedas an aid in determining diagnosis, treatment, and disposition; making loans orgrants of money for certain purposes; providing "comfort"items and services to patients unable to obtain them for themselves; andplanning and directing approved recreation for patients.29 For these purposes,the Red Cross recruited both volunteer workers and paid employees, providingsalaries for the latter out of its own funds.
29Army Regulations No.850-75, 30 June 1943. It should be noted that neither the Salvation Armynor the Young Men`s Christian Association, both of which had rendered valuableservices in World War I, was authorized as a welfare agency in World War II.
