ARTICLE ΧΙ.

MEDICAL AND SANITARY SERVICE.

PERSONNEL.

629. The following persons will be employed in the Medical and Sanitary Service in time of war:

(a) Medical officers of the Regular Army, the Volunteer Army, and the organized militia called into the service of the United States.

(b) Surgeons and dental surgeons under contract.

(c) Hospital Corps.

(d) Army Nurse Corps.

(e) Officers and men of the line or staff detailed for duty with the Medical Department.

(f) Officers and men temporarily on duty during or after a battle, engaged in removing the wounded.

(g) Civilian employees as clerks, drivers, laborers, or scavengers. 630. Regiments of whatever arm of the service, and smaller units acting independently, either have their own medical officers and hospital corps detachment, or the prescribed number (paragraph 25) will be assigned. In addition, some of the men in the companies who have been instructed as litter bearers, and members of bands, will be employed during and after engagements under the direction of the regimental surgeon.

631. The service of the authorized private societies for the aid of the sick and wounded may be utilized at the base and on the line of communications-elsewhere in exceptional cases only-under the authority of the commanding general and the chief surgeon. They should be assigned at or before the time of mobilization.

ORGANIZATION.

632. The service of the Medical Department in the field is divided into:

Service of the front, comprising all medical department formations which march with the troops.

Service of the rear, comprising all medical department formations which belong to the army but do not march with it.

633. The lines of medical assistance for an army traced from front to base are as follows:

Front: Regimental aid. Field hospitals, including ambulance company sections. Advanced medical supply depots.

Rear: Stationary hospitals and rest stations on the lines of communications. Base or general hospitals at base of operations. Convalescent camps. Casual camps. Base medical supply depots.

DUTIES IN GENERAL.

634. In the field the Medical Department is charged with the following duties:

(a) The initiation of all hygienic measures to insure the good health of troops.

(b) Management of epidemics among the inhabitants of the country under military control to prevent infection of new territory or of the army.

(c) Care of sick and wounded on the march, in camp, on the field of battle, and after removal therefrom.

(d) Methodical disposition of sick and wounded so as to assure the retention of those effective on the field of battle and to relieve the fighting force of the noneffective.

(e) Transportation of sick and wounded.

(ƒ) Establishment of new hospitals and utilization of old ones sufficient in number and capacity to care for all sick and wounded. (g) Supply of troops and hospitals with all articles needed for the care of sick and wounded.

(h) Preparation and preservation of individual records of sickness and injury in order that claims may be adjudicated with justice both to the Government and the soldier.

SPECIAL DETAILS.

635. Medical inspectors, selected when possible from among the medical officers of the regular establishment, will be detailed on recommendation of the Surgeon General in the proportion of one to each division.

636. The commanding general of any separate command may detail officers of the line or other staff corps for duty with the Medical Department in the capacity of quartermasters or commissaries of

subsistence, but enlisted men of troops will be detailed to that department only in cases of emergency.

Officers and men so detailed shall be selected for their special fitness for this duty, and shall be examined by a board of medical officers as to their physical condition. Such as are found to be not qualified shall be rejected and others detailed in their stead.

Medical officers will act as acting assistant quartermasters and acting commissaries of hospital ships, hospital trains, general hospitals, field hospitals, and other Medical Department organizations when line officers or officers of the Quartermaster's or Subsistence Departments are not available for such duty.

GUARDS.

637. Guards will be furnished from the line of the Army for hospitals, for medical supply depots, for the protection of medical property, and to insure the safe custody of prisoners.

Field hospitals will habitually be guarded by their ambulance company sections, guards from the line of the Army being detailed only when this is impracticable.

General hospitals will be furnished with the necessary guards by corps, division, or department commanders. These guards will be ordered to report to the commanding officer of the hospital.

Necessary guards for the medical department other than at general hospitals will be furnished by commanding officers, on the application of senior surgeons, who will state what particular instructions they wish given to the guards.

TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES.

638. Articles supplied by other departments, after being properly assigned to the medical department, will be under its exclusive control and command, and will not be diverted from it by commanders subordinate to the authority by which they have been so assigned or by officers of other staff departments.

All transportation which pertains permanently during a campaign to the execution of the duties of the medical department will be assigned to that department.

This will include hospital trains, ships and boats, ambulances, wagons, and all animals, with the crews for working such trains, ships, and boats.

639. Transportation for the temporary use of the medical department, such as wagon trains, railroad trains, and ships and boats for

the removal of wounded, will be reported by the quartermaster in charge to the senior medical officer, under whose orders such transportation will remain until it has completed the special work for which it was assigned to the medical department.

640. Transportation of medical supplies and other supplies for the use of sick and wounded will be performed by the medical department as far as possible with the transportation assigned for the use of that department. Such supplies as can not thus be transported will be invoiced to the Quartermaster's Department for transportation. Medical supplies turned over to the Quartermaster's Department for transportation will, as far as possible, be expedited next after ammunition and rations. When necessary enlisted men of the Hospital Corps will be detailed to accompany medical property. 641. Each company will be provided with a litter by the Quartermaster's Department; it will be carried with company transportation ready for use.

DIRECTION OF SERVICE.

642. Medical officers and men of the hospital corps attached to troops will ordinarily remain under the orders of the officers commanding such troops, but in emergencies the entire medical personnel of the division may be placed at the disposition of its chief surgeon.

Except in battle or emergency, orders in reference to such personnel will pass through the military channel.

Division surgeons may be authorized to make assignments and to issue orders and instructions to medical personnel by order of their commanding general.

SERVICE IN CAMP.

643. In addition to their duties in caring for the sick and wounded, medical officers will, whenever the occasion arises, act as sanitary advisers of commanders of troops. Beginning with assistance in the selection of a camp site and a report on its water supply, they continue their functions in the maintenance of sanitary conditions by frequent inspections and consequent recommendations.

644. In camp, regiments brigaded will establish regimental infirmaries and not regimental hospitals. These infirmaries will care for emergency cases and for those slightly sick or injured. All serious cases will be promptly transferred to field hospitals, which will be located by division surgeons.

Regiments operating independently, or at such great distance from field hospitals that it is impracticable to transfer serious cases

to them, will, under authority of the division surgeon, establish regimental hospitals. These hospitals should have their full personnel and equipment which should always accompany regiments changing base, except in the operations of an active campaign, when the personnel will be assigned and the equipment stored under direction of the division surgeon.

645. Medical inspectors, in addition to their duties in reference to medical department organizations, will carefully investigate the sanitary condition of all troops. When sanitary reforms requiring the sanction or cooperation of military authority are urgently demanded, they will report at once to the officer commanding the corps, department, or division the circumstances and necessities of the case and the measures considered advisable for their relief, forwarding a duplicate of such reports to the chief surgeon, and furnishing to the commanding officer of the troops a written statement of all irregularities and deficiencies observed.

646. When the command moves forward the sanitary personnel of the troops should be promptly relieved by corresponding units from the "service of the rear." In case of retreat the necessary personnel remains with the immobile sick and wounded under protection of the Geneva Convention.

SERVICE ON THE MARCH.

647. The regimental medical officers will habitually accompany their regiment, the senior with the commander at the head, one junior with the ambulance at the rear, the other at the rear of the leading battalion.

648. On ordinary marches the field hospitals will march in rear of the last regiment of the division.

When an engagement is in prospect the personnel for a dressing station, with pack transportation to carry the equipment, will march at the rear of each brigade. With exception of the parts of the ambulance company sections thus detached, the field hospitals will ordinarily march at the rear of the division; but when there are several divisions in one column, one field hospital from each division would usually be held in reserve and march with the "second line" of ammunition columns and trains, that is, a short day's march in rear.

The regimental ambulances will rejoin the ambulance company sections before an engagement.

649. Sick and wounded falling out in line of march will be placed in the regimental ambulance; when this is filled diagnosis tags will