Contents

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.