such facilities are available. Certain other hospitals have been designated as "debarkation hospitals" to receive patients transported from the various theaters by air. These function in the same manner as the port debarkation hospitals.

Beds in general and station hospitals in theaters of operations have been made available, depending on estimated requirements, averaging from 5 to 8 percent of the strength of the troops in a given theater. These beds are known as "fixed beds," in contradistinction to the beds in field and evacuation hospitals, which are referred to as "mobile beds." In addition to these hospital units, Medical Department personnel, both commissioned and enlisted, are attached to combat ground troops and air units, either as "attached medical" or medical battalions. Evacuation and field hospitals are mobile units which operate, as a rule, in tents, and are transported by truck or other conveyance.

All hospitalization in the overseas theaters is operated by the Army Service Forces. In the United States, certain regional and station hospitals serving the Army Air Forces are operated under the command of the Commanding General, Army Air Forces, and under the direction of the Air Surgeon. All other named general and station hospitals serving ground force and service force troops, including all casualties from overseas, are operated under the Commanding General, Army Service Forces, and directly under the commanding generals of the nine service commands.

REHABILITATION PROGRAM

The Army has several centers at which it is rehabilitating its blind and deaf until they have become socially adjusted and can be turned over to the Veterans Administration for vocational and educational training. The deaf are taught lip reading, fitted with the necessary hearing aids and their morale improved. The blind are taught Braille and other known aids to the blind are used in our two hospitals now caring for the blind. The center set up at the Avon Schoool, Avon, Conn., will continue with this treatment after maximum improvement has been secured through hospitalization.

No patients except the insane and tuberculous are discharged to the Veterans Administration for care until they have reached maximum hospital improvement. All amputation cases are fitted with prostheses and taught their use before being discharged.

Everything that can possibly be done, medically and surgically, to restore the wounded and sick soldier to health is done before he is discharged from the service.

Objectives.

RECONDITIONING PROGRAM

(a) To return to duty as many soldier patients as possible.

(b) To return to civilian life the veteran discharged for disability.

(c) In either case, to return the soldier patient in better physical condition, better educated, better informed and oriented-a better individual.

Extent of program.

(a) Established in all Army Service Forces hospitals.

(b) Especially trained and qualified military personnel is provided each hospital to carry out this program, depending on the size of the hospital.

(c) Approximately 90 percent of the total number of patients in Army Service Forces hospitals are included in this program.

Nature of program.

(a) Four classes of patients are established, as follows:

(1) Group nearest point of recovery. Daily physical training to enable the group to engage in an 8-hour activities program that will fit them to pass a physical fitness test and carry out a 15-mile hike before return to duty.

(2) Group composed of those capable of 6 hours of physical training, to include calisthenics, drills, marches, outdoor fatigue, and athletic sports.

(3) Group of ambulant hospital patients still receiving treatment, which is paramount. These may be divided into groups for medically supervised exercise according to anatomical limitations, such as upper and lower extremity, abdominal, and other special cases. Frequent rest periods will be essential.

(4) Patients considered convalescent, but still bed cases.

(b) The program is so designed that it coordinates all branches of reconditioning with a balanced schedule and in such a manner that physical conditioning, educational conditioning, and occupational therapy take their proper place in restoring the soldier patient to health.

93447-44-pt. 5—5

DENTAL SERVICE

Rejections for dental defects ran to around 5 percent. It was decided then that if an inductee had no malignant disease or extensive osteomyelitis in his jaws, he would be accepted regardless of the number of serviceable teeth. This threw an immense load upon the Dental Corps of the Army. During the years 1942 and 1943, 14,600,000 cases were treated. This required more than 53,000,000 sittings and 31,000,000 fillings were accomplished during this period. During the same time, more than 1,400,000 bridges and dentures were supplied, 196,000 dentures repaired, and more than 6,000,000 teeth were replaced by dentures and bridges. The necessary dental supplies and equipment to do this work required the production of 31⁄2 times the quantity normally produced in any given year in the United States.

VETERINARY SERVICE

To protect the health of troops, the Army Veterinary Corps, in addition to its animal service, is inspecting over 20,000,000 pounds of meat, meat food, and dairy products daily in the United States.

TRAINING OF ILLITERATES

Prior to June 1, 1943, illiterates upon assignment to branch training centers were trained in special training units by the branch. Upon completion of their courses, these men were placed in regular training units. No figures are available upon the number of illiterates thus trained prior to June 1, 1943.

Since June 1, 1943, illiterates have been assigned from reception centers to special training units and, upon completion of courses in these units, have been assigned to the branch. The following is a summary of illiterates who have entered the service since June 1, 1943.

Illiterates entering service from June 1, 1943, to May 31, 1944.
Illiterates discharged----

149, 709

16, 078

ARMY VENEREAL DISEASE PROGRAM

Senator PEPPER. General Lull, will you summarize for us what the Army has done about the venereal disease program-that is, about taking men into the service and giving them treatment, and will you tell us how many more are in the IV-F pool who might possibly be taken in?

General LULL. Yes. Cases of venereal disease originally were rejected if they were in the infective stage. It was in October that the program for the induction of these individuals was started-October 1942. Up until April 1944, 138,723 cases of venereal disease had been taken in and treated. That included 96,600 cases of syphilis. They are not all in. The white venereal disease cases in the pool are about exhausted. We have very few white cases left. Most of the venereal disease cases left in the pool are colored cases. We can only accept a certain percentage of the inductees with venereal disease, and the percentage is relatively higher in the colored. There is a bigger backlog of colored.

Senator PEPPER. You mean because of having facilities to treat only a certain number?

General LULL. For instance, if there is a call for 10,000 colored inductees, we take in only a certain percentage of the colored inductees who have venereal disease.

Senator PEPPER. What causes you to limit the number that you take in?

General LULL. We limit it because it postpones their training to have the treatment, and we want to take the bulk of them in who are physically fit and able to be trained at once.

Senator PEPPER. What has been done with those who are discovered to be defective and are not taken in-those who remain outside as civilians?

General LULL. They are reported to the proper authorities in the locality from which they come.

Senator PEPPER. They are being given treatment?

General LULL. In many cases these people are given treatment, either by clinics or their own physicians.

Senator PEPPER. Is there any lawful authority to require those men to be treated properly?

General LULL. In certain States there is authority in law for them to be treated. It all depends on the local law, Senator.

Senator PEPPER. But the Federal Government doesn't exercise any authority to require them to be treated?

General LULL. I think not, other than to report it.

Senator PEPPER. Mr. McNutt, would you care to supplement that statement?

Mr. PAUL V. MCNUTT (Federal Security Administrator). There is no Federal authority. Of course, our work is a combination Federal and State operation. The funds are furnished to the State. We simply supervise that operation.

Senator PEPPER. Well, how many of those infected, if they took adequate treatment from civil sources or other sources that might be made available to them, could be corrected and put into military service?

General LULL. I would say the vast majority of them could be corrected.

NO FACILITIES FOR TREATING REMEDIABLE 4-F's Senator PEPPER. Well, isn't it a serious question as to whether the Federal Government, which is deferring those men from military service on account of illness, doesn't have an interest in their getting that illness corrected so they may be made available for service? Isn't it a fact, for example, that a good many fathers have been taken into the armed services because single men infected with some illness which could be corrected were deferred on that point?

General LULL. I don't think I can answer that question, as to how many fathers were taken in, but I believe that this is a potential pool of manpower that the Federal Government is vitally interested in.

Senator PEPPER. So far as you know now, there is no Federal program, other than the Federal-State venereal disease control programs, in which men in this 4-F pool with remediable defects are having those defects corrected?

General LULL. None that I know of, Senator. In many States this is compulsory, and they follow it out on the State level.

Senator PEPPER. Now, would there be in the base hospitals, or in the Army and Navy hospitals that are in continental United States,

facilities for medical treatment for which these defectives who have remediable defects might be eligible? Are such facilities available? In other words, are there enough doctors and dentists and hospital beds and hospital facilities available so that these men, if they were required to come up for treatment, could get treatment?

General LULL. There are not enough available, sir. Our dental program has been quite extensive. We have had to work on three shifts in dental clinics, work the dentists in 8-hour shifts, in order to accomplish the correction of dental defects. The same thing is true of hernias. In places they are pushed to take in large numbers of men in certain camps and correct the hernias, so that we haven't at the present time the personnel nor the beds available to correct these defects.

Senator PEPPER. If the Government were to pay for the treatment, do you believe there would be enough civilian hospital facilities, enough civilian doctors and dentists in the country, and enough of the necessary equipment?

General LULL. No, not at present. I don't believe there would be, at present, with the shortage of doctors and dentists in civilian life, so many of them being in the armed services.

Senator PEPPER. It does strike me that there is public interest in this great pool of more than 4,000,000 men. I am told that a considerable percentage of those could be made eligible for military service if they had certain physical defects corrected. It seems to me that what could be done should be done so as to correct those defects, so that those men may be made available for military service, and that the Government should pay for it, have it done in civilian hospitals, and make those men available. You are taking in now, as I understand it, about all you think you can take care of.

General LULL. That is right.

Senator PEPPER. Are the selective service boards instructed as to what defects you will accept?

General LULL. Yes; they are.

Senator PEPPER. So you are taking in a certain number of 4-F's, not for limited service, but for the correction of their defects, and then they will be placed in unlimited service?

General LULL. They are in limited service until their defects are corrected.

Senator PEPPER. I believe you are a member of the new committee on physical fitness of the American Medical Association? General LULL. Yes; I am.

Senator PEPPER. And you have already indicated that you thought that, beginning with infant care and proceeding on up through the schools, we should put more emphasis on the health program? General LULL. That is right.

ARTIFICIAL LIMBS FOR VETERANS

Senator PEPPER. General, is there anything that you can tell us about the artificial limbs which are being made available for veterans? Is that program having any difficulty?

General LULL. No. An amputee in the Army is fitted with a temporary artificial limb. He doesn't get his permanent prosthesis while he is still an Army patient. He is turned over to the Veterans'

Administration, and they supply him with a permanent prosthesis. The one we supply is only temporary.

Senator PEPPER. And do they supply replacements?

General LULL. If I am not mistaken they supply replacements and the man himself has a certain amount of choice in the kind of a limb

he gets.

Senator PEPPER. So that is all done under the Veterans' Administration.

General LuLL. The Army provides a temporary prosthesis. The man is fitted at the hospital when he is under treatment. We have a number of amputation centers in the United States. When a man who has lost an arm or leg arrives at the port of debarkation he is sent to one of these amputation centers where we have teams of skilled men who are used to handling this type of case, and where we have mechanics who are in an orthopedic shop and who know how to construct these appliances.

POST-WAR EDUCATION

Senator PEPPER. General, I want to ask you one other question. In respect to the education which the Congress shall make available to men and women who have been in the armed services, the question arises as to how long they should be in the services on active duty before they become eligible for these educational benefits. I am speaking now of the man or woman who sustained injury in service. Now, in relation to what psychologically may have been the effect of induction upon the inductee, or what his opinions otherwise may have been, can you draw any limit of time and say that we should require 3 months or 6 months, or 18 months or 30 months of active service before those benefits become available? What I am getting at is that some of us have the feeling that the time should be very short, if, indeed, there should be any time condition preceding it at all.

Now, have you any comment to make on that?

General LULL. Do I understand you correctly, Senator? The time interval from the time he is discharged from the service?

Senator PEPPER. No. The time he is in the service before he is eligible for educational benefits.

General LULL. I don't think I am prepared to make any statement on that, Senator. That is purely a matter of luck with the inductee. There are a great many factors. He may have been inducted and discharged within 90 days, or he may go through the entire war and be in a very safe place and never have been shot at; or, he may be inducted and sent to a front and be injured shortly after he gets there. There are so many factors involved in the thing that I don't think I am prepared to give an opinion about.

Senator PEPPER. Well, you take a boy, say an 18-year-old boy, who comes out of high school, or who has not quite completed high school, and who comes into the Army; isn't there a considerable dislocation in that boy's thinking and habits, and doesn't he of necessity go through a mental readjustment, even if he goes through the training period and stays in only 3 months? Isn't that boy mentally and emotionally jarred enough from his previous experience so that it is probably in the public interest to encourage him to fit back into a school program?