234 Miracles Ahead! 



When the war ended, word of Trueta's remarkable suc- 

 cess spread far and wide. Trueta, who had fled to London, 

 gradually won the support of British surgeons, and when 

 World War II came they lost no time in adopting the Trueta- 

 Orr method. No one worried any more about the smelly casts. 

 Fractures make up about 60 per cent of all war injuries, and 

 those casts have worked with a death rate of less than one 

 per cent. 



The Base Hospital 



Farthest back are the great general, or base, hospitals. These 

 are not mobile and are far removed from the battle area, some- 

 times several hundred miles. The general hospitals have one 

 thousand beds or more, and are the equal of the most elabo- 

 rate city hospitals. The men may remain here until they are 

 entirely cured and returned to duty, or they may be sent to 

 general and convalescent hospitals in the United States huge 

 well-equipped and well-staffed institutions maintained in vari- 

 ous parts of the country by the Army and Navy. 



"Often the trip to the home hospital is made by ambulance 

 plane," states the OWI report on Recovery of American 

 Wounded. "There have been cases of men wounded on some 

 distant battlefield several thousand miles away reaching this 

 country faster than the report of their wounding; of a cheer- 

 ful 'Hi, Mom!' over long-distance telephone informing a 

 mother of her son's safe return. 



"One soldier, with a severe abdominal wound, was brought 

 by ambulance from Egypt in 72 hours, and is now recovering 

 rapidly in an Army hospital. Others have been flown from 

 the Far East, Europe, India, Africa. The fact that a man 

 knows he can be home in a couple of days from almost any 

 part of the world is a tremendous morale-builder." 



Pointing out that in this war there are no rigid and distinct 



