Acknowledgments
This reasonably complete and comprehensive record of the experience in
orthopedic surgery in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations reflects the
efforts of a number of medical officers who served in that theater during
World War II. They include--Brig. Gen. (later Maj. Gen.) Albert W. Kenner,
Brig. Gen. Frederick A. Blesse, and Maj. Gen. Morrison C. Stayer, who at
various times served as theater surgeon and who had the overall responsibilities
for the medical activities of the theater; and Col. (later Maj. Gen.) Joseph
I. Martin, MC, Surgeon, Fifth U. S. Army.
Col. Edward D. Churchill, MC, Chief Consultant in Surgery, Office of the
Surgeon, Mediterranean Theater of Operations, who guided the transition which
took place in the theater in the management of wounds of the soft tissues
and then in the management of wounds involving the bones and joints, and
which provided the pattern for the subsequent management of these injuries
in all overseas theaters.
Col. Frank B. Berry, MC, Chief, Surgical Service, 9th Evacuation Hospital,
and later Consultant in Surgery, Office of the Surgeon, Seventh U. S. Army,
whose observations on, and advice concerning, the problems of serious wounds
of the extremities was invaluable.
Col. Howard E. Snyder, MC, Consultant in Surgery, Office of the Surgeon,
Fifth U. S. Army, who effectively taught the principles of good initial surgery
in all the hospitals of that army.
Maj. Champ Lyons, MC, Consultant in Wound Infection, Chemotherapy, and Penicillin
Therapy, Office of the Surgeon, Mediterranean Theater of Operations, who
did so much to emphasize that penicillin therapy was merely an adjuvant to
good wound surgery and should be used to obtain better surgical results.
Appreciation is also expressed to the late Brig. Gen. Fred W. Rankin, Chief
Consultant in Surgery, Office of the Surgeon General, and his assistants,
Col. B. Noland Carter, MC, and Col. Michael E. DeBakey, MC. They were all
most helpful in the followup survey on the results of delayed internal fixation
of compound battle fractures in the Mediterranean theater and on other problems
of management of casualties with wounds of the bones and joints which were
carried out in Zone of Interior hospitals.
Acknowledgment is also made to the various surgeons and orthopedic surgeons
in the Mediterranean theater who made the special surveys upon which several
of the chapters in this volume are based.
Finally, acknowledgment is made to the chiefs of orthopedic surgery in
the general and station hospitals in the communications zone in the theater
and to the general and orthopedic surgeons in the forward hospitals, all
of whom aided so materially in the development of the program of initial
and reparative surgery for compound battle fractures which was in effect
at the end of the war.
A very substantial and indispensable contribution to this volume, in a
field widely separated from that covered by the author and by the medical
officers on whose work he has drawn for the content of the book, has been
made by Melvin J. Hadden, HMC, USN, who, under the direction of Mr. Herman
Van Cott, chief, Medical Illustration Service, Armed Forces Institute of
Pathology, Prepared the very excellent layouts for the illustrations and
supervised artwork and preparation of illustrations for printing.
Appreciation is expressed to The C. V. Mosby Company for their cooperation
in providing printing media for several illustrations appearing in this volume
which also appeared in the book "Wounds of the Extremities in Military Surgery"
by Oscar P. Hampton, Jr., M. D.
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