Echoes of Navy Medicine’s Past: Enter the All Steel Navy (1866-1917)

Echoes of Navy Medicine’s Past
Part III: Enter the All Steel Navy (1866-1917)
By Jan Herman and Mr. Grog

If he were still alive in the years immediately following the American Civil War, French magistrate Alexis de Tocqueville may have observed a nation devoted to uniting its “house divided” through free enterprise and Western expansion. The U.S. Navy did not fit into this equation for national healing. After the Civil War, it lapsed into a period of dramatic decline as naval appropriations were cut and the number of ships and men on active duty shrank dramatically. The Navy and Navy Medical Department were, in a true sense, landlocked.

Medical Department resources were deemed “entirely inadequate to the proper support of the naval medical service, however prudently administered.” Because of inadequate remuneration in pay, low entry rank, and scant opportunity for promotion, few young physicians joined the Navy.

In his 1867 annual report to the Secretary of the Navy, Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Dr. Phineas Horwitz (1822-1904), complained bitterly about the Medical Department’s immediate prospects. He pointed out that 48 vacancies existed in the Medical Corps which were impossible to fill “properly.” The number of unfilled vacancies since the end of the recent war had grown to such a degree that according to some, the Navy Medical Department would simply disappear. Horwitz urged Congress to pass legislation immediately to increase the opportunities for promotion in respect to both rank and pay.

On 3 March 1871, Congress acted, granting medical and other staff officers of the Navy “relative rank” with grades “equal to but not identical with the grades of the line.”

This Act went further than any previous Congressional action in strengthening and transforming the Navy Medical Department. The Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery now held the additional title “Surgeon General,” with the relative rank of Commodore.” Surgeon General William Maxwell Wood (1809-1880) stood at the helm of this “revitalized” organization. At the time, Wood was a man entering his 42nd year of a naval career as unusual and varied as could be. He had served aboard USS Poinsett, one of the first steam vessels of the Navy, and designated flagship during the “expedition for the suppression of Indian hostilities on the coast of Florida” (a.k.a. the Seminole War). Wood served shore duty at Sackett’s Harbor, NY, Baltimore, was Fleet Surgeon of the Pacific Fleet, and served under Commodore Sloat in California during the Mexican War. Despite his credentials as the first Navy Surgeon General, he served less than two years.

The health of the Navy’s personnel steadily improved following the war partly due to the new emphasis on preventive medicine and hygiene. This was attributable, at least in part, to the transition from wooden hulls and sail to the all-steel, steam-powered Navy. The storage of coal in below-deck bunkers and the exhaust gases generated by its combustion required adequate ventilation. Moreover, the foul condition of many ships’ bilges had become a regular theme of reports from the Navy Surgeon General to the Secretary of the Navy. Conditions aboard many naval vessels were blamed for yellow fever outbreaks and led to the establishment of the short-lived and seldom used Navy quarantine hospital on Widow’s Island in Maine’s Penobscot Bay (1887).

On 20 March 1878, the Navy Department created a board of naval officers to solve the ship ventilation problem. The board advocated a ventilation plan consisting of a tube network running through every part of the ship and terminating in a large main through which air was drawn by a steam blower. In 1879, Surgeon General Phillip Wales urged the rapid installation of this new ventilation system throughout the fleet

During the 1870s the naval hygiene movement was promoted by Medical Directors Joseph Wilson, Jr., author of Naval Hygiene (1870), and Albert L. Gihon’s Practical Suggestions in Naval Hygiene (1871). As early as 1879, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) established a laboratory for investigating hygiene-related issues and began collecting items which would comprise the collection of the Navy Museum of Hygiene, established in Washington, DC, in 1882. Until it merged with the Naval Medical School in 1905, the Museum exhibited ship’s ventilation systems and housed displays illustrating disinfection techniques. It also was a leader in promoting environmental and occupational medicine. The institution went beyond its museum role by becoming an education center for the promotion and development of laboratory research, particularly with chemical, bacteriological, and microscopic investigations.

As American interests in the Pacific and the Far East became more prominent in the 1870s, so did the scope of the Navy Medical Department. Between 1867 and 1869, USS Idaho, which had been converted into a hospital ship and kept at anchor in Nagasaki, served as a floating hospital for the American Squadron in the Far East.

To provide more adequate medical facilities for the U.S. Navy’s Pacific activities, the Navy constructed new hospitals at Mare Island, CA (1870) and Yokohama, Japan (1872), which became the first U.S. Navy hospital in Asia.

Throughout the 1880s and 1890s U.S. Navy presence became increasingly evident throughout the world as Navy vessels were being assigned to the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, European, Pacific, and Asiatic stations. In addition to routine cruises, the Navy was frequently called upon to protect American citizens and American interests; to give assistance to victims of shipwrecks, earthquakes, fires, floods, and civil war; and to carry out special explorations in the Arctic, Alaska, Central America, and elsewhere.

As Navy medical officers went ashore at hundreds of ports throughout the world, many of them wrote detailed observations of climate and medical conditions, the people, quality of medical facilities available, endemic diseases, and the methods being employed to combat them. Many of these narratives were published in volumes of the Annual Reports of the Navy Surgeon General (1871-1859).

On 17 June of that year, a century after the “first” loblolly boy reported for duty aboard USS Constellation, an Act of Congress established the Navy Hospital Corps. Navy Surgeons General had long promoted a well-trained professional corps to provide medical care in the field. However, it was only after the outbreak of the war with Spain that Congress finally acted. The first group of hospital corpsmen numbered only 25 pharmacists (apothecaries) with rank, pay, and privileges of warrant officers.

The Hospital Corps came just in time. Following the Spanish-American War, the world’s newest colonial power had “spoils” to administer—Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Samoa. The United States was now a Pacific naval power with new ships, new stations, and enlarged hospitals. Navy medical officers had to confront tropical diseases few Western physicians had ever seen before—dengue, yaws, leishmaniasis, leprosy, yellow fever, intermittent fever, filariasis, dysentery, elephantoid fever, not to mention venereal afflictions sailors acquired in exotic liberty ports.

The Navy Medical Department dealt with these issues through training. In 1902, the Navy Medical School, then located at the U.S. Naval Laboratory in Brooklyn, NY, relocated to the Naval Museum of Hygiene in Washington, DC. Its mission was straightforward: The new school was “for the instruction and training of newly appointed medical officers in professional branches peculiar to naval requirements.” Here was an institution where newly commissioned physicians could learn the kind of medicine they would not have been exposed to in civilian medical schools—tropical medicine, the treatment of ballistic wounds, burns—in short, the grist of naval medicine. A five-month course had a curriculum covering microscopy, naval hygiene, military law, and a program of physical exercise and military drill akin to what any student might experience in a military school or service academy.

Because tropical disease had accounted for many of the casualties suffered by troops in Cuba during the recent war with Spain, it was a chief focus of attention at the school. Indeed, future Surgeon General of the Navy Edward Rhodes Stitt (1867-1948), today considered the pioneer in tropical medicine, taught at the school and was one of its first commanding officers.

Following the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps in 1902 by Congressional Act, BUMED campaigned for its own nurse corps. This effort paid off on 13 May 1908, when the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps was established. The first nurses in the Navy—a.k.a. the “Sacred Twenty”—reported for orientation and duty later that year at the new U.S. Naval Hospital, Washington, DC. The site also housed the Museum of Hygiene and Navy Medical School. On 8 August 1908, former U.S. Army nurse, Esther Voorhees Hasson (1867- 1942) became the first superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps.

The Medical Department continued to expand. On 22 August 1912, President William Howard Taft signed a bill authorizing “not more than 30 acting assistant dental surgeons to be part of the Medical Department of the United States Navy.” By the beginning of World War I, the Navy Medical Department had grown in size to four separate corps. The Surgeon General, now with the rank of rear admiral, was at its helm. The Medical Department had 2 hospital ships and 17 naval hospitals to administer.

On 9 April 1914, Mexican soldiers arrested U.S. Navy personnel seeking supplies in Tampico, Mexico. The Mexicans released the soldiers but without the apology President Woodrow Wilson demanded. Wilson ordered RADM Frank F. Fletcher to occupy the Mexican port of Vera Cruz with the naval forces under his command. The U.S. intervention and occupation fomented fierce Mexican resistance and generated casualties on both sides. For their heroic actions treating the wounded under fire, Navy surgeons Middleton Elliott (1872-1952), Cary Langhorne (1873-1948), and Hospital Apprentice 1st Class William Zuiderveld (1888-1978) were awarded the Medal of Honor. Shortly thereafter, there would be ample opportunities for heroism. Just four years after the Mexico intervention, Navy Medical personnel would find themselves braving U-boats in the North Atlantic German soldiers on the Western Front.

Society for the History of Navy Medicine Graduate Student Travel Grant Program

from http://historyofnavymedicine.wordpress.com/the-foundation-page/society-graduate-student-travel-grant-program/

Society for the History of Navy Medicine Graduate Student Travel Grant Program

In 2010, the Society introduced its Graduate Student Travel Grant Program in order to induce and encourage graduate students of history and the health sciences to explore work in our area of particular interest – the history of navy or maritime medicine. Funded by the tax-deductible dues-donations of Society members (and in 2010 by an especially generous gift from Rear Admiral Fred Sanford, Medical Corps, U S Navy, Retired), Grants of $750 are given to students whose papers are selected for presentation at the Society's Meetings and Papers Sessions. The Society presently rotates the panels between the American Association for the History of Medicine (of which the Society is a Constituent Society), the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS), and either the Society for Military History or the U S Naval Academy biennial History Symposium.

Interested graduate students or students of medicine, nursing or allied health sciences should contact the Society Executive Director, Tom Snyder, at tlsnyder@history-navy-med.org.

VADM James Zimble Remembrance

ATTENTION DEAR BLOG READERS. We are collecting stories and recollections of the life and career of former Surgeon General Vice Admiral James Zimble. Any stories that you may have of your service with him that you are willing to share would be appreciated. It is our intention to incorporate these memories into our archives and publish them in an upcoming article in our Navy medical history periodical. Please e-mail us at: Andre.Sobocinski@med.navy.mil.

Archives: Album of Medical Commissions

Album of Medical Commissions
Organizational records
1826-1940s
1 album, unrestricted, no finding aid

Medical commissions especially those of Surgeon General Edward Stitt,
collected at the Stitt Library, NNMC, and transferred when the Library
closed. One commission from Woodrow Wilson appears to be missing.

A Brief Glimpse: Navy Medical Facilities in Naples

U.S. Navy Infirmary Afragola, Italy (ca. 1952).*

11-0009-01

All Photographs from BUMED Library and Archives

The Navy established its first shore-based medical activity in the Naples area during the latter months of 1951 when the personnel of USS Adirondack moved ashore to establish the Headquarters, Support Activity, Naples. To augment this dispensary, and to provide for an increasing number of military and their dependents, a 50-bed infirmary was set up in Afragola (20 miles outside of Naples). In March 1954, the infirmary was moved to a remodeled building in Naples. All medical services were centralized within this "new" structure, and the dispensary and infirmary were decommissioned.

"Plankowners" at U.S. Navy Infirmary Afragola, Italy (ca. 1952) **

11-0009-02

U.S. Naval Hospital Naples (ca. 1954)

11-0009-05

In July 1965, construction began on a new eight story, reinforced concrete structure on the slopes of a volcanic crater within the city limits of Pozzouli, a suburb of Naples. The new hospital was occupied in October 1966 and in July 1968 was commissioned as Naval Hospital Naples. After severe damage to the hospital as a result of a series of earthquakes in the Pozzuoli-Agnano region the Navy began planning a newer facility that would keep pace with the latest seismic requirements. In April 2003, the new Naval Hospital opened in the Gricignano area of Naples.

U.S. Naval Hospital Naples (1966-2003)
11-0009-07

*1st floor - officers + 12 bed medical ward. 2nd floor - 21 bed Surgical ward + Operating room. 3rd floor - Dependents Ward + Del. Room. SOQ not shown.

**1st row L-R: LT M.M. Lepine, LT A. Vitillo, LT J.E. McCarthy, LT R.D. Clarke. 2nd row: Lt. M Petrusky (MSC), CAPT F.J. Weddell Jr. (MC), CDR P.J. McNamara (MC). 3rd row: LT D.C. Dixon (MC), LT D. Mundie (MC).

Sources
Kane, Joseph. Naples Delivers: The Birth of a Naval Hospital. Navy Medicine Magazine. July-August 2003.
Patton, W. Kenneth. “Naval Hospital Naples.” History of Navy Hospitals (unpublished), ca 1970.
Smith, Robert L. Naval Pharmacist-Italian Style. U.S. Navy Medicine Magazine. Volume 58, August 1971.

Archives: Brounoff Music Room Guest Book

Brounoff Music Room Guest Book
2011.0005
Personal papers
1 volume, no finding aid, unrestricted
1944-1945

Pharmacist Mate 3rd Class and Dallas Symphony Orchestra violinist Zelman
Brounoff established a music listening room at Naval Hospital Shoemaker
CA during World War II, and kept a log of people who came by to listen
(and to perform) with their comments of appreciation. The book acts as a
commentary on the value of "music therapy". A small number of
photographs of Hospital officers are tipped in. Brounhoff was a violinist with the DSO from 1926 until his retirement as concert master emeritus in 1983.

The War's First Christmas

LCDR Grace B. Lally
Chief Nurse, USS Solace, 1941
BUMED Library and Archives 09-5043-039


***

The War's First Christmas

(Originally Published in The American Magazine, January 1945)

By LCDR Grace B. Lally, NC, USN

I was a chief nurse aboard USS Solace, Navy’s hospital ship attached to the Pacific Fleet, when the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor. From that fateful morning until Christmas Eve, neither I nor the twelve nurses who served under me had much sleep or peace of mind. But in spite of weariness, all of us were aware of the Navy tradition that a tree rides the mast on Christmas, and we had managed to collect four scraggy cedars in Honolulu, together with enough tinsel, holly, decorations, toys, and knick-knacks so that every man aboard the Solace would have a gift and a celebration.

Now, on Christmas Eve, the nurses’ quarters were bustling with preparations.

Suddenly, I remembered we needed a Santa Claus.

“Get the yeoman who stands with the Commander at quarters—the plump, jolly-looking boy,” someone suggested.

“He’s perfect, “ I agreed. “Send for him, and the sailmaker.”

In our wardroom, the nurses who were off duty and I worked frantically against time.

“Trees on the mast, the quarterdeck, and in the mess hall,” we instructed the corpsmen.
“And take these trimmings to the wards. Let the up-patients help you decorate.”

“You’re Santa Claus,” we told the rotund yeoman, who grinned delightedly. “Be prepared for anything.”

“Here’s the bunting; make him a suit,” we told the ship’s sailmaker. “Get some rope and make him a beard.”

The sailmaker’s fist hit the table. “A department-store Santa Claus won’t hold no candle to him!” he swore, piloting the yeoman from the room.

Some of our presents were already wrapped; the majority were not. We had 32 pounds of candy to be divided into small, gay packets. We had one gift for each of our 327 patients and one for each member of the ship’s crew.

Fortunately, the paper held out until the last small present had swapped its cheap commercial bindings for the trappings which to every boy there would spell Christmas, and be a symbol of the gifts from which, this year, would not come through.

The nurses segregated the toys for the most critically injured, and learned that there would not be enough of the nicer gifts to go around. Over the last, a tawdry mechanical ballet dancer, they argued hotly, loyally:

“But Swenson’s blind. He’s got to have something he can feel. He could wind her up and feel her dance.”

“Look. I’ve got a machinist’s mate. He’s old and very critical. He’s got kids at home. This is the sort of silly present he’d bring home to them for Christmas. Maybe it’s his last. Maybe it would bring them closer.”

The machinist’s mate got the little dancer. There was compromise and exchange. Some of the girls still weren’t satisfied, so they went to their quarters and dug around in the bureau drawers.

***

The girls were beautiful that evening, I thought. They sort of shone, as if the lights had been turned on inside. There was a mother-thing in all of them that fought fiercely to protect its own from hurt, from neglect. It went beyond nursing, beyond self.

Before December 7 we had made tentative plans for Christmas Eve. A famous choir was to have come out from Honolulu and sung on the deck. But now our decks would be dark, only the black shadow of the tree would ride high on the mast. Maybe the stars would etch its silhouette.

Carols we must have, and luckily I remembered there was a corpsman who played a sweet accordion. Immediately we routed him out.

“Sure, I can play carols,” he said proudly. “I was weaned on ‘em. And I’ll get six of the boys who can sing.”

And so at nightfall, when the wards had been fed and the nurses had changed into their best uniforms, Santa Claus—more beautiful than a department store’s—with a bulging seabag on his back, led our small procession below. We sang Jingle Bells as we went, and out of nowhere the ship’s captain appeared. “I’m with you, Miss Lally,” he said.

The captain had second sight, I knew, when anything of harm or benefit to his ship was concerned. But I did not know that he was aware of our Christmas celebration, nor of how much his presence on such an occasion would mean to the patients.

He fell into step behind Santa Claus, and I followed him, first to the G.U. War, where, after the Japanese attack, we had placed our most serious burn cases. Behind us came the girls and the corpsmen, all singing. I could not sing right then, being too terribly aware of the eyes that looked at me from some of the burn-blackened faces.

War and Christmas seemed suddenly incongruous. Only yesterday these kids were sneaking down the stairs to watch their mothers and dads place the last glimmering icicle on the tree, tuck a walnut deep in the toe of a stocking. Pain now made the young faces seem mature. But even eyes that had been almost lifeless brightened miraculously as the nurses distributed their presents and Santa Claus his bounty.

“Shaving soup! You know, Miss Lally, I’ve worked for months to grow this beard. You wouldn’t be hinting or anything?”

“Hey, look at Wilkins. He got vilet talcum powder. Oh-h-h, Wille-e-e-e!”

***

We continued to walk, singing from ward to ward, and gradually a real procession formed behind us—a line-up of most of the ship’s officers, all the junior officers, and the crew.

Up in the nurses’ quarters we had our own party afterward. We had eggnog, and all of the girls talked at once, comparing notes on the different boys’ reactions to their gifts.

-“That big landlubber, Ogonski said, ‘Geez, the scrub me from top to toe twice a day, and then give me a cake of poifumed soap to remember them by!’”

-“We were right to give the ballet dancer to the machinist’s mate. When I went back to say good night, there he was, fast asleep, a bit of smile on his face, and the toy clutched in his hand—just like a kid.”

-“You know, it’s funny,” Tess Duggan said suddenly. “It’s the biggest Christmas Eve we’ll ever know. I mean the most important. We’ve all the ornaments, and glitter, and fine presents, and family. We’ll all have those things again, too. But it will never again be quite so big tonight.”

**A few minor edits were made to the original article