Introductory Note
The medical histories of the Civil War and the First WorldWar which were published under the auspices of earlier Surgeons General containlengthy descriptions of hospitalization and evacuation in rear areas. Thepresent volume therefore continues the Army Medical Service's tradition ofpresenting a detailed account of these operations during a great war.
The contrasts between World War II and earlier wars inmatters of hospitalization and evacuation are of course striking. The Armyprovided-at a maximum-more than twice as many hospital beds in the UnitedStates in World War II as it did in World War I, although curiously enough thenumber of beds in the zone of interior hospitals of World War I was very littlelarger than that in the Federal rear-area ("general") hospitals of theCivil War. The process of transporting and regulating the flow of patients tothese hospitals in World War II differed in important respects from the methodsused earlier. Yet despite these-and many other-changes, real elements ofcontinuity existed. The convalescent hospitals and specialty centers, whichbecame outstanding features of the World War II hospital system, existed on asmaller scale in World War I. The horse-drawn ambulance of the Civil War gaveway to the motor ambulance of the two world wars, but hospital trains carriedlarge numbers of patients in 1864 as in 1918 and 1945. Even the use of airplanesfor transporting Army patients in the United States, an important factor inevacuation during World War II, had its small beginnings in World War I.
These observations are not meant to imply that the recentchanges in hospitalization and evacuation outside the combat areas were lessnumerous or important than the features which remained essentially the same.They are merely a reminder that the full meaning of this volume can only begrasped if it is read with some knowledge of earlier events. Even without thisbackground, however, readers who now or in the future are engaged in the work ofhospitalization and evacuation should find much in the account to help thembuild on the achievements and avoid the pitfalls of the past. If the book servesthat purpose, the work of the author and his assistants will be amply justified,as will the interest of the many officers and civilians who responded so freelywhen called upon for their personal knowledge of the events described.
The author of Hospitalization and Evacuation, Zone ofInterior, Clarence McK. Smith, is a graduate of Newberry College, SouthCarolina, has an M.A. degree from Harvard, and except for a dissertation, hascompleted the requirements for a Ph.D. degree at Duke University. He taughthistory at Newberry College
from 1940 until he entered the Army in World War II. During the war he servedas an officer in the Medical Administrative Corps of the Army. From 1946 to1954, he was a member of the Historical Division of the Office of The SurgeonGeneral.
Washington, D.C. GEORGE E. ARMSTRONG
11 January1955 Major General, U.S. Army
The Surgeon General
