Medicine Looks Ahead 235 



battle lines, the OWI says this requires that our medical-care 

 organization be ready to change on a moment's notice. That 

 is why our medical officers are trained to adapt themselves to 

 all conditions, and is the reason for our mobile hospital units. 



Mobile Bacteriological Laboratory 



Among the other mobile equipment are a bacteriological 

 laboratory, a miniature health department on wheels, which 

 tests water, food, and determines the nature of any disease 

 which may attack the troops; the traveling optical laboratory, 

 one of the newest and most interesting of the mobile units, 

 which can supply a soldier with new glasses in a few hours 

 after his are broken or lost; the mobile dental unit, with an 

 easily moved dental chair and all equipment necessary to care 

 for the teeth of our fighting men; mobile water purifiers, 

 which go with troops to foreign territory and purify all the 

 water drunk by our men regardless of any guarantee of its 

 harmlessness. 



Ambulance trains are used to transfer men from evacua- 

 tion points to base hospitals abroad. The first of these trains 

 was turned over to us by the British under Lend-Lease. These 

 trains have six ward cars, a car for sitting-up patients, a 

 pharmacy car and other cars for storing materials, as well as 

 operating rooms and special compartments for psychiatric 

 cases. 



"Month after month of work, research and experiment have 

 gone into development of our Army and Navy medical equip- 

 ment," reports the OWI. "This has resulted in such inventions 

 as folding litters and folding leg and arm splints, which may 

 be packed in small spaces for use in battle areas; the jungle 

 kit, carried by men on duty in the tropics, containing appara- 

 tus for counteracting snakebite, various kinds of drugs from 

 aspirin to atabrin (for malaria), salt tablets to prevent heat 



