Internal Medicine in World War II
Volume II, Infectious Diseases, prepared and published under the direction of Lt. Gen. Leonard D. Heaton, The Surgeon General, United States Army; Editor-in-Chief, Col. John Boyd Coates, Jr., MC, USA; Editor for Internal Medicine, W. Paul Havens, Jr., M.D. xxvii + 649 pages, illustrated. Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, Washington, D. C. 1963. $6.75
The reader of this volume of the Medical Department of the United States Army, based on experience in wide-spread staging and combat areas during World War II, may be disturbed by the fact that most of the information was accumulated twenty or more years ago; but at the same time he will be impressed by the forceful and authoritative utilization of the data, now evaluated objectively in their historical perspective. In a rather lengthy foreword, Lt. General Leonard D. Heaton, the Surgeon General of the Army and a surgeon by profession, has referred to “the wisdom of our policy of utilizing the personal experiences of present or former medical officers” in the compilation of the book, to the significant scientific contributions resulting from first-hand experience with chronic and acute diseases in the war areas, and to the development of better management of infections growing out of new knowledge.