BASE HOSPITAL 5 FIGHTS TWO WARS

Base Hospital No. 5, reorganized by the Medical School in November 1939, after a 20 year interruption of service, and recently called to active duty by the War Department, is succeeding to a brilliant tradition established in the last war.

The original unit, formed largely through the efforts of the late Dr. Harvey Cushing of the Medical School, went overseas in 1916 as a mobile Red Cross hospital, and served in Franco caring for British and French soldiers. When we entered the war the United States Army took over Base Hospital No. 5, which was one of the first of these units to become active and was nursing Allied wounded before an American Expeditionary Force had crossed the Atlantic.

Dr. Cushing as Chief Surgeon directed the Base Hospital until it was disbanded at the close of the war, to be called to service again a year and a half ago to answer the call of the present emergency.

The present Unit, headed by, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas H. Lanman '12, as acting director, has just been ordered to an eastern seaboard camp for a brief period of training, after which it will leave the United States for an officially unannounced destination. It is one of four or five such Base Hospitals organized by various colleges in the country.

The officer personnel of the present hospital includes surgeons and medical men from eight different Boston hospitals, from the Hygiene Department of Harvard, and from the Harvard Dental, Dental Medicine, and Medical Schools. Over 60 members of these Faculties will leave Harvard with the Hospital Unit.

The Base Hospital is divided into eight services: Surgical, Medical, Laboratory, X-ray, Headquarters, Registrar, Mess, and Dental Corps. Lieutenant-Colonel Lanman, acting for Elliot C. Cutler '09, regular director of the Unit, is in addition Chief of the Surgical Service.