Preview of Agony

ARMY & NAVY

On the principle that all men are brothers after their bodies are broken, a U. S. Naval physician and a Belgian Army doctor in 1921 conceived that military medicos should cooperate in peace to promote healing in war. Last week Captain William Seaman Bainbridge and Colonel Jules Voncken, founders of the International Congress of Military Medicine and Pharmacy, had a reunion in Washington with colleagues from 33 other countries.

Medical collaboration having fared better than other forms of international amity, Germans and Frenchmen, Britons and Italians, hobnobbed in great goodwill at their tenth Congress. Jittery Poland's, Estonia's and Yugoslavia's doctors at the last moment were ordered to stay home. But so many bigwigs were allowed to attend that the delegates told each other there could be no war while they were away from their armies. In beribboned and bemedaled uniforms, they made the staid lobby of the Willard Hotel gay. They also made excellent propaganda for peace. To experts' previews of the next war:

Germany's Major Bruno Brandi: "The future war will be a continuous sum of single catastrophes and collapses. An open war [i.e., not in trenches] will be aimed at by all means. Fighting . . . in extended war areas . . . will cause casualties in large spaces . . . high numbers." Major Brandi estimated that in brief, strongly resisted attacks, daily casualties per 100 fighting men would be as high as 15, in prolonged battle, five to seven for attackers, four to six for defenders; that 20% of the wounded would be gas cases (compared to 15% in 1918).

"The gravest losses to the army and nation, the dead, missing and the prisoners, are irrelevant to the medical services." Major Brandi figured that of every 100 casualties in open warfare, 15 would be irrelevant dead, ten would be missing, 75 would be relevant wounded.

U. S. Colonel Albert G. Love: In the World War, 65.9% of 224,000 U. S. wounded were shot, 31.49% gassed, .26% bayonetted. Artillery fire caused 70% of the gunshot wounds (compared to artillery's 10% in the Civil War, when small arms caused 90% of wounds). As in all armies, the infantry in the World War had the highest casualty rate; aviation along with ordnance the lowest (only 8% of Air Corps personnel are pilots).

Calling the infantry rate 100, Colonel Love arrived at the following index of losses for other services: machine gunners (now in the infantry) 70.12; signal corps 16.46; tank corps 15.85; artillery 11.58; engineers 9.15; medical 8.54; cavalry and quartermaster department 3.05 each; aviation and ordnance 1.83. In the World War the ratio of losses for every 1,000 infantrymen in combat was as high as 349.6 killed & wounded in one day of intense attack, more often was no to 150. Guessing for the next war, the U. S. Medical Corps expects 150 daily casualties (24 killed, 96 shot & wounded, 30 gassed) out of every 1,000 infantrymen in action. Whole armies, having one infantryman to two in other services and a big proportion of their troops in reserve, may expect an overall casualty rate of 15 per 1,000 per day.

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