The American military has used medics as far back as our birth, in the Revolutionary war. July 27, 1775, the Continental Congress named Dr. Benjamin Church director general and chief physician of a 20,000 man medical service. The first handbook for medical training in the military service came from a pamphlet published later that year by Dr. John Jones, entitled “Plain, Concise, Practical Remarks on the Treatment of Wounds and Fractures”. In fact this pamphlet remained the standard up until the Civil War. Another medical first for the military was the concept of inoculation of troops on the mass scale.

Post-war peace brought cuts in military services. Until 1813, when Dr. James Tilton was granted command of a medical service unit, the Army only 5 members; 1 surgeon as well as

The Late 50’s leading up to Vietnam were like any other era, filled with expansion in knowledge, and application techniques. The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research experts invented a system for “needleless” vaccinations. In 1957 they managed to isolate the influenza virus, common in Asia. When NATO was formed, AMEDD provided its first manual for field medicine, “Emergency War Surgery”. Studies in psychological and biological effect of space travel on primates, would eventually lead to allowing humans to safely travel in space. As the decade came to a close, doctors like Maj. Harold Williams, who experimented with sleep deprivation; and Col. Trygve Berge, who developed a safe vaccine for equine encephalitis, which affected horses and people, were major parts of our scientific and medical expansion.

The 20th Century also brought new technologies to the practice of medicine.

In the Vietnam era changes continued to take place. Hospitals became “portable”, that is to say they could be moved by truck or airplane. These inflatable rubber shelters came with electrical power, AC, heating, water supply, and waste-disposal system. They first arrived in Vietnam in 1966.Several Medal of Honor awardees came from this era’s Medical Corps. In 1970, Army Nurse Corps Chief Ann Mae V. Hays was promoted to Brigadier General, and thus became the first female general in Army history. Advanced procedures in physical and occupational therapy also were interposed in the Medical Specialists Corps. By 1966, they had adapted a more dexterous and natural looking artificial hand. Also, in 1966, Osteopathic therapists were admitted into the Specialists Corps. Treatments for diseas

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