Partisan Medicine

Last month came the first news of the grim medicine practiced among Yugoslavia's Partisans, where doctors fight shattering wounds, frostbite and typhus almost without equipment (TIME, May 8). Last fortnight, TIME'S Stoyan Pribichevich, chosen by lot to represent the U.S. and British press in Yugoslavia, sent out a pooled dispatch containing more details on Yugoslav medicine. Excerpts:

"The Partisan Army of 300,000 now has about 500 army doctors, among them first-class surgeons, but they often have no tools to do the job. 'At least we don't have to do it without anesthetics any more,' says General Nikolic. In this particular district of Bosnia there are now sufficient basic medicaments and bandages. Not so, however, in remote Montenegro and eastern Bosnia, where heavy fighting is raging today.

"Excepting perhaps the Chinese army, Tito's National Liberation Army has the highest percentage of amputations in the world. Last winter, several hundred bare-foot fighters had to have their frozen legs amputated. Also, the typical wound of the Partisan soldier is the fracture from mine thrower, cannon or bomb, and since hospitalized Partisans often must be moved over rugged terrain in this mobile warfare, the usual result is amputation.

"The nature of the Partisan warfare makes proper medication impossible, with all the Allied help. The basic principle of the Partisan strategy is never to defend a certain area at all costs, but to retreat when the enemy pressure reaches a certain point and conquer new territories else where. This means constant movement of the improvised hospitals and the wounded; therefore, there is no permanent hospital or rest for anybody when the pokret (movement) is ordered."

No Convalescence. "Civilians, livestock and the wounded walk in long disciplined columns over the mountains at night. I asked whether plaster was available for fractures. Yes, it could always be captured from the enemy, but plaster breaks in the movement, so broken limbs are compressed by wooden boards nailed together. Nor is there any convalescence possible in this country -- a man belongs to a walking hospital or to the front.

"The Partisan wounded have no Red Cross protection. The enemy executes them, for the Yugoslav Government [of the Regent Paul] signed an armistice with the Germans. The Germans regard the Partisans as rebels, not as a regular enemy army.

"Since last winter's sixth German offensive, the Partisans have been evacuating their wounded to Italy with Allied help. Out of 12,000 wounded, 2,000 have been evacuated so far.

"Due again to the nature of the Partisan warfare, the wounded soldier can seldom be transported from the battlefield to the hospital quickly enough. On a truck, a cart, horseback, stretcher or on foot, it takes him anywhere between one week and six weeks to reach his medical destination. He may die or become an invalid for life on the way. It is for this reason that less than 70% of the Partisan wounded ever get fit for the front again."

Alcoholism Unknown. "There are medical problems that pester thousands of doctors of the Allied armies and that the Partisans don't have to bother with: they are alcoholism and venereal diseases. Alcoholism is unknown in Tito's army. This is not propaganda, but stark fact. At first, it was a matter of doctrine not to touch liquor. Today a Partisan soldier may indulge in a glass, but if he ever got drunk he would have to crawl underground from shame. I have been offered lucrative bets to find a witness testifying to having seen a single drunken Partisan in the last three years. Personally, I have seen none.

"The Partisan medical officers are worried about the 50 venereal patients in their army of 300,000. All were infected recently in the newly liberated Bosnian areas where the enemy, committing whole sale rape, had left his diseased tracks. Before that, not a milligram of antivenereal medicaments was needed. The sexual morality of the Partisans is almost 100 percent. Promiscuity is punished most drastically--a few lax individuals have been executed by firing squads."

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