I am a doctor that plays a doctor. Medicinen internal physician in pennsylvania. This is my hobby. I love it. I love the guys out here. I love speaking to the public. I love the educational factor we are trying to keep this alive. This is a mobile emergency room. Treat, do, we assess, we stabilize, and then we get them out. Get out of my yard. We are basically located as close to the front lines as possible. Inve got troopers coming in pretty bad shape. It operates behind the lines. Here he again demonstrates his value, taking on many jobs the physician would have to perform. This frees the doctor to Pay Attention to the serious cases. The medics are the real heroes in the war. They are out there will triaging with gunshots. They will triage in the field. They come to one guy with a cut on his shoulder and say put a bandage on you and get back to the rear. The second guy has both legs blown off. This guy is going to die. Theres nothing that is going to save this guy. Get somere going to lipstick from their girlfriend and get him as much morphine as they can spare and let this guy die in peace and find somebody to save. This is the first job of the medic. A man is hit and an eight man gets to his side. Stopping the blood is allimportant. Giving a shot of morphine to help the pain. Live got another guy they come up to. He has a bad wound. Hes got really clammy skin. Not answering questions. This guy is going into shock. He does not have much long to go if we dont get medical attention. He brings him in here. The Battalion Surgeon, i have to triage the triage. Ive got to decide which one is the most critical and also which one i can save. Remember these guys are coming in shock. Blood pressure is low. They are going to die if we dont get it out. Or they will go into renal failure. Theres no dialysis in the second world war. Think wemain reason i saved so many lives was because of the plasma. The european theater of operation held the plasma. The plasma is the fluid component of blood. It is a volume expanded. It increases intravascular volume. We get the iv started. Hopefully we get the Blood Pressure up and stabilize it to the point we can get them out. The second part of the war, they actually came up with freeze dried plasma, which looks like cornstarch. They would mix it with distilled water. There would be your volume expanded. That is what we would give. Somebody asked about surgery. I dont do surgery. Number one, i dont have general anesthesia equipment. I cant take time to do that. I would spend an hour cutting off a leg. Ive got five or six more people out here. Have, the maini quality of this battalion aid station, is a seasoned medic. , they can start the iv while im working out here. They can advise the doctor. Much combatw experience did they have . Unless they did residency in innercity detroit, not much. Just like today in the hospital with the residents and in turn. How much they rely on the seasoned nurses to help them. So weve got the guys here. We stabilize them. We call them on my cell phone over here. Is, its got batteries in here. Can got a generator that i twist on. This generates a charge. This can go in the phone on the opposite end. I will toggle to talk. And then i will call for transportation. Say ive got somebody with a really bad chest wound that needs surgery. I will call them up and say we need somebody here now. We need to get them into surgery. He aint got much longer. We can get transportation to get them in. From here they would go to a collecting station. Do, they would reassess the patient and decide this guy needs to go to the Field Hospital. This guy has too much vascular issues. Lets get him back to england. We can get him to recover back there. Officers are an expert in judging the conditions of casualties. Urgent cases needing certain surgery are turned over to the Field Hospital which is set up close by. The majority of operations are for abdominal wounds and sucking wounds of the chest, like this one. One thing the about the battalion aid station, everyone is different. We have the same purpose, but you could have a piece of canvas over a ditch and call that battalion aid. The main thing is to be as close to the front lines as possible and get these guys in and treated. 80 of people that left this place survived. It was 50 in world war i. The main reason was the plasma and also penicillin. Do i have time to go over the antibiotics we had back then . We had penicillin. If you had a sofer allergy, you are out of luck. Penicillin was discovered in england. The first guy that discovered it was like what the heck is this . They shelved it and rediscovered it in 1938. 1940nd was concerned in about not getting taken over by the germans. They brought the penicillin to the united states. They found the right mold to produce the best yield. They had a logarithmic curve. With as used prophylactic. I would wash it out, give them a slug of penicillin, stabilize them, and call for transportation. Get out of my yard. Mindctor in the right wants to be a Battalion Surgeon. I dont want to be here. I want to be in hospital with a bunch of goodlooking nurses. I dont want to be 200 yards from the front line with bullets going overhead. This is my job. If i did not do my job, people would die. For the most part, the Battalion Surgeons did not jump into combat. They would establish a front. We would be brought in by ship. The more i read, the more doctors did jim. One doc was with the third battalion of the 506. Dr. Stanley morgan. Captain morgan. He actually did jump into normandy. He sprained his ankle and was captured by the germans. Where do you think they put him . They put him to work. He worked right alongside the germans. Could not understand a word they said. But it was the same technique. Where did we learn our techniques . From the germans. The first part of the war, we had a hard time getting surgical instruments. They were made in germany. What is a Battalion Surgeon . Years of medical school. One year of general medical internship. There goes my deferment. I was the first one in the draft. They did not want to medical student. They wanted a doctor. Then i was eligible for the draft and they would get me to list. Pushed me out of the airplane five times, screaming all the way. Part of went on to be the 326 hospital core. Core thathe hospital was attached to the hundred first. Anyway, a lot of the doctors were green when they came in. They had seasoned doctors sure. Some of them were green. That is why it was important to have the seasoned medic that would help us out. Come through and look around. The medical cabinets you see, i tried to have things im going to use. Blood pressure cuff. This is a Blood Pressure cuff. It works. It works with a column of mercury. It is accurate. Basically youve got the laws of gravity, that never changes. How am i going to hear Blood Pressure in the heat of battle . Normally i would assess it clinically. How about some more morphine . I can feel the polls. His Blood Pressure is fine. If ive got a guy that is cold and clammy, i can feel a polls, and he passes out, this guy is going into shock. And remember when we are not doing battle, this is your doc in the box. Some guy gets into a fight, i will so him up. Somebody goes into town and meets a girl and comes back, i can give him penicillin. Everything is in boxes and crates. Ive got to pack this up. There are times we may have to retreat to the rear if ive got people that are coming in with battle wounds. The germans did honor our group. For the most part. We honored their medical personnel for the most part. There was one story, i had a patient, he said it was foggy, you could not see your hand in front of your face. There were two germans coming with something. They were getting ready to open fire. The german said dont shoot. They were german medics that had found one of our troopers that was in bad shape. They brought the trooper in. They face to the guy. Saved his life. As much food as they could spare. Everybody was starving back then. Got some american cigarettes and they smuggled the germans back to their own lines. You hear stories like that. There are atrocities on both sides. In this tent, as far as im concerned, there is no nationality. Mee got six guys in front of , four of them are americans. Im going to treat the one that needs the most treatment first. The most critical. Im sure theres other surgeons that have different thoughts. I am a doctor first. What else . To the rear of it. It would be nice to have something we could get the trooper out of the elements. You would never see a stretcher by itself. The stretcher was in the field. Crates, have sawhorses, something to get the trooper off the ground so the surgeon could treat. I dont do major surgery here. I dont have time or anesthesia. Somebody comes in with a laceration, we will clean it up a little bit. We will irrigate it with water. Give them a slug of penicillin. We are not going to close it. People ask me, where are my gloves . Here they are. We did not have disposable gloves back then. They had gloves for surgery. After surgery they had to wash the gloves and put them on a blower to make sure they were competent. I dont have time for that. I dont have electricity. Can. H my hands the best i i put some alcohol on it and go for it. My hands are not in somebodys guts. I hope not. Ay somebody has a major wound a hunk of shrapnel in their belly. Theres no way im going to pull that out. Im going to leave that. That can prevent further bleeding. I pulled out, ive got something squirting in the face. And then i am in a world of hurt. The same thing with a chest wound. I am goinging to do, to put compression dressings on and then get them out. The guy had a thorax, i could relieve that. The diagnostic skill, remember it was between my ears. There is no radiology or ultrasound. Nothing like that. Sterilization we talked about. The instruments. That boiled water and then i sterilize my instruments. Use, if i were to close something, which most of the time i didnt, would be surgical cotton. Reason i couldme close up any muscle. I would use this. I dont know if you can see it. There it goes. This is catgut suture attached to a curve cutting needle. This is a low class vial with a crimp in it. You would break this out on the sterile field. This is still sterile. I dont think the suture would be any good. Its just amazing. They all came in little packages like this. They have the little vials in it. Nowadays it comes with tinfoil. They open the tinfoil and put those in the field. This is a portable operating room table. When i get this out, the troopers run. This is a monster to put together. Battalion eight, you would see most of these in the surgical area. It is nice to have this here. Like i say, the stretchers were in the field. That needs somebody to come in, i can put them on this to work on it. Iv fluid, we talked about that. The bottles they came in that we would reconstitute the plasma after we used the bottles. Would we throw them away . We wouldnt. We would reuse them. E would watch them nothing was thrown away around here. Except for second lieutenants. Just kidding. I didnt say that. Seeay, sometimes you would a medic from the field. What happens when he runs out of dressing . Necessity is the mother of invention. He would tear off his uniform. The Battalion Surgeon would actually, this would be my quarters. I am here 24 hours a day. Beeper, so they cant get me on the golf course. Try to makeuld everything work here. Deluxe of going to ride aid. Where am i going to get more bandages . I have no idea. A german prisoner of war, i would ask, does he have any bandages . The germans, does he have any american cigarettes. Aid. Y, this is battalion they did a remarkable job. We all love world war ii. We are history enthusiasts. We love the war. It helps to keep it alive. It helps to educate the young people. You get a kid today and you ask about pearl harbor. The kid is going to say is that a singer . Its important. It is also to pay tribute to the men and women that have died for our country. The men and women still serving our country. I tell the kids, go up and shake a veterans hand. Because if not for those guys, we would be eating sauerkraut and fish heads. Its important to do this, to keep it alive. This is why i do it. This is why i do it. I still dont understand how , they were making lifeanddeath decisions. All doctors do. Lifeanddeath decisions hourly. Some of these guys, some of the surgeons were the equivalent of a thirdyear medical resident. To decide who was going to live and die, i had a Battalion Surgeon, hes a patient. He said later in life hes to have nightmares of people he killed. What do you mean killed . You saved lives. Faster,if i had worked worked faster maybe i couldve gotten to some of those people. Asked, how did you do it . He said it was easy. I had to. If i did not do my job, people would die. So that is one of the Amazing Things about these guys. If you like American History tv, keep up with us on facebook, twitter, and youtube. Learn about what happened in history and see preview clips of upcoming programs. Follow us at cspan history. William hitchcock discusses president ial leadership during the cold war and the impact on politics. Here is a preview. Idea the have an 1950s was a peaceful time. Dont believe a word of it. It was a dangerous time. We dont give like enough credit doingg thing things president s have to do, manage crises. I waged and i won a war. Eisenhower did that. Managing the crises so they do be they do not become worse is part of the cold war presidency. Do that well. Staying out of indochina. He didnt use he did use Nuclear Threat but did avoid conflict which the American Public was grateful for. They hated the korean war. They were delighted he got out of the korean war. They had been at war since 1941. The country does not want that kind of conflict. Eisenhower gave them peace, which they wanted. Watch the full Program Sunday at 6 30 p. M. Eastern here on American History tv. This is American History tv, on cspan3, were each weekend we feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nations past. As part of a course on the american road trip, university of Mary Washington professor Christine Henry talks about the history of Roadside Attractions and her own experience travelling to a Freshwater Pond in ohio called the blue hole. Michael good morning. For those watching todays lecture, i am michael spencer. Im the chair of the department of Historic Preservation here at the university of Mary Washington. As well as instructor for this freshman seminar course, today is my pleasure to introduce dr. Christine henry. An assistant