The Evolution of Preventive Medicine in the United States Army, 1607-1939

The author of this small volume, a former dean of the Yale University Medical School (1935-40) served his country in the U. S. Army Medical Corps in two World Wars, the last one in the Preventive Medicine Service of the Surgeon General's office in Washington. He thus knows of what he speaks and for him the tracing of this history has been, in many ways, a labor of love. His creed is stated clearly in the Introduction-that in order for this discipline to flourish: . . it has never been sufficient for military preventive medicine organization to be merely Army centered. It is necessary for the vitality and progress of the preventive medicine organization that the closest possible association and cooperation be maintained with a significant civilian institution or body, laboratories, medical schools, universities at home and abroad. Thus Bayne-Jones besides being thoroughly familiar with his subject from the military aspect is experienced also from the academic side, having served as professor of microbiology in no less than three medical schools and having inherited in the 1920's and 30's the authorship of the most distinguished American book on bacteriology of its time. In this history he gives a vivid picture of both civilian and military preventive medicine and, try as he may to suppress it, his respect and loyalty to the Army Medical Corps comes out repeatedly. It is our loss that the story terminates in 1939, ending on a high note just at a time when the Preventive Medicine Service in the U. S. Army was about to make new and impressive gains. But it is as an introduction to these gains that this history has been recorded. The task of deciding when military preventive medicine emerged as opposed to curative military medicine is admittedly difficult but Bayne-Jones has chosen to mark its beginning with the contemporary influence wrought by Sir John Pringle (Surgeon General of the British Army, 1742-48) whose book, Diseases of the Army, became almost overnight an 18th century classic. From that time forward, concern with the health of troops became an integral part of the duties of any military surgeon. The provision of proper nourishment and quarters for troops were its beginnings; and when, in the late nineteenth century and afterwards, startling discoveries began to come in bacteriology, the control of infectious disease in military personnel became more than a dream. Also, it has been brought out that at the turn of the century, those military surgeons who had the knowledge and the talent to conduct field experiments, often in peacetime military situations, on the control of infectious diseases made adequate use of these opportunities. An early example of this at the turn of the century were the discoveries and field experiments by Major Walter Reed and General Gorgas, which were to forward the control of yellow fever. Following on this theme, Dr. Bayne-Jones has described how in World War I, the Medical Department of the U. S. Army took upon itself the task of securing the best authorities in the land in the planning and execu-