472 A HISTORY OF NATIONAL TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION 



4. Special attention to carefully balanced ration, ventilation, physical exercise, 

 and general personal hygiene of all men in the navy and Marine Corps. 



5. A definite policy of early detection and segregation of all men suffering 

 with tuberculosis. 



6. Hospitalization. Formerly at Fort Lyon, now through Veterans' Bureau 

 facilities. 



7. At the present time all enlisted men suffering with tuberculosis are dis- 

 charged from the service as soon as a definite diagnosis of tuberculosis can 

 be made, and in many cases are held as supernumeraries until they can be 

 taken care of by the Veterans' Bureau. In the case of enlisted men who 

 have entered the navy since February 9, 1922, and those who are not 

 eligible for benefit under the Veterans' Bureau, hospitalization is still 

 afforded from naval sources. 



8. The Bureau could not discharge officers except by retirement and, there- 

 fore, arrangements have been made with the Surgeon General, U. S. 

 Army, to take care of officer patients until they are ordered before a 

 retiring board. The army hospital utilized in this connection is the 

 Fitzsimmons General Hospital, near Denver, Colo. This hospital also 

 receives enlisted men of the navy suffering with tuberculosis. 



PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 



With the gradual return of all the sick and wounded there was 

 naturally a considerable increase in the number of soldiers and 

 sailors who had either contracted or developed tuberculosis in 

 service as a result of war work or as sequelae of influenza or 

 pneumonia, and in 1919 the U. S. Public Health Service was re- 

 quired to make physical examinations and to furnish medical 

 care for the disabled veterans applying for compensation. 



To meet the serious emergency which then arose, the medical 

 corps was quickly increased to more than 5,000 physicians, of 

 whom 2,700 were full-time medical officers. Hospitals were 

 rapidly organized and the field force made contact with appli- 

 cants in every county in the United States. One-third of the 

 patients admitted to hospitals were tuberculous. 



A program for necessary hospital construction was prepared 

 in conjunction with the War Risk Insurance Bureau, proposing 

 51 new hospitals at a total estimated cost of $85,000,000. Of 

 these, 19 with an aggregate of 9,330 beds, were designed for the 

 tuberculous. While this program, which was published Decem- 

 ber 5, 1919, Public Document No. 481, of the Sixty-sixth Congress, 

 was considered by the Congress as too pretentious, subsequent 

 events indicate that the forecast was approximately correct. 



