flier, and is a consistent outcome of all policies pursued by the medical branch of the air service with regard to the selection and care of the air service personnel. Respecting hospital construction and maintenance, the work has been mainly directed towards standardizing all medical department buildings for use at flying fields. The following cantonment types have been developed: 1. Hospitals: Six-bed; 8-bed; 28-bed; 50-bed; 60-bed; 100-bed; 250-bed; 750-bed; 1,250-bed. 2. Medical Department enlisted barracks: Types for 30 men; 50 men; 60 men; 200 men. 3. Nurses' quarters: Types for 6 nurses; 12 nurses; 30 nurses; 60 nurses. 4. Medical research laboratory buildings. 5. Cold-storage buildings of three types have been developed for 1.000 men; 2,000 men; 5,000 men. These are cooling chambers in ice houses, and have been built at 20 of the southern fields. 6. Storehouses of two types, one for single unit and one for larger fields. These include fumigation chambers and the necessary shelving. Two permanent hospitals are being constructed, one at Rockwell Field and one at Langley Field. These were designed by Mr. Kahn, of Detroit, Mich., and will be a credit to the service. A 200-bed hospital, the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital at Cooperstown, N. Y., was offered, rent free, to the aviation service for the recuperation of aviators, by Mr. Edward Severin Clark, of Cooperstown. The buildings will be completed about February 1, 1919. Included in the lease is the free use of the golf links, gymnasium, library, and club at Cooperstown. All hospitals at all fields have been enlarged during the fiscal year, and separate quarters provided for enlisted men. Nurses' quarters at 21 of the single-unit fields have been delayed owing to their disapproval by the Secretary of War. It is hoped their construction will proceed shortly. Steps have been taken to increase the ventilation in all barracks and hospitals in the aviation service. The subject of providing quicker and more efficient handling of the injured, following crashes on flying fields, is receiving the consideration of the medical service, and the airplane ambulance is being developed. In all cases where the injured are in imperative need of an immediate operation, or must be moved with a minimum jolting, their transportation to the rear by airplane ambulance is important. Experiments have already shown the following important facts: (1) While an auto will cover a distance of 20 km. in an hour and a half, an aeroplane with the same load will do it in less than 15 minutes. (2) All jolts which are so dangerous to the wounded, particularly to those suffering from wounds of the abdomen and thorax, and from fractures, are radically eliminated. The shock of landing on rather bad grounds is much slighter than the jolt one gets in an automobile crossing over ruts or shallow trenches. The aviation section, Signal Corps, ceased and determined upon the creation and organization of the Department of Military Aeronautics, pursuant to the proclamation of the President, dated May 20, 1918. The chief surgeon's office, aviation section, Signal Corps, became the air service division, Surgeon General's Office. On the 30th day of June, 1918, there were 65 stations occupied by troops connected with aviation. XIII. FOOD DIVISION. The food division was established September 4, 1917. The director appointed by the Surgeon General secured the serves of an advisory committee. A meeting of this committee was eld on September 29, 1917. The plan presented by the director for utritional surveys of camps and cantonments was formally aproved. The plan presented was set forth in a memorandum to the urgeon General dated September 19, 1917. On September 20, 1917, a conference was held in the office of the nited States Food Administration, Washington, D. C., to consider uestions relative to the subsistence of the Army. The Surgeon eneral of the Army, the Quartermaster General of the Army, a presentative of the British Army, the Director of the Food Admintration, and a number of other notable men who are engaged or terested in this class of work, were present. At the suggestion of e Surgeon General, the Director of the Food Administration was alled upon by the chairman to outline the plans for investigation of me food conditions in the camps. There followed a general discuson of subsistence and waste in the Army camps, in the course of hich a number of questions were asked regarding the plans of the od division. Such comments as were made were generally favorble to the plan. Formal approval of the plan of operation outlined for nutritional rveys was obtained by an indorsement approved by the Secretary War dated October 16, 1917, and on October 26, 1917, The Adjunt General addressed a letter to all the commanding generals of partments, National Guard, and National Army divisions, and the mmanding officers of Coast Artillery districts, training camps, and dependent stations on the subject of food surveys and inspections in e training camps and cantonments and hospitals of the United States my, requesting authority to make the food surveys as outlined in e several posts, training camps, cantonments, and hospitals of e United States Army, and authorizing the necessary travel for is purpose. Officers for the food division were selected mainly from the faculties medical schools, university laboratories, and agricultural experient stations, and were commissioned in the Sanitary Corps. They ere given a brief course of training in Army procedure, in the conact of nutritional surveys, and in gross inspection of foods. Later course for nutrition officers was established at Camp Greenleaf. The first nutritional survey was made at the ambulance service aining camp, later known as Camp Crane, Allentown, Pa., the first ek in October. Following this parties were made up and succesely dispatched to other camps until early in 1918 the total number parties had reached 10. Surveys were made and parties constited as described in Table 156. Results may be grouped under three heads corresponding to the ree main lines of activity: (1) Inspection of food; (2) improvement mess conditions; (3) study of the suitability of the ration. 1. INSPECTION OF FOODS. Foods were inspected by nutritional survey parties at the sistence storehouses and in mess houses, special attention being g to those classes of food not already inspected by the veteri division or by representatives of the Bureau of Animal Industry the Quartermaster Corps. 2. IMPROVEMENT IN MESS CONDITIONS. Mess conditions were studied with reference to (a) sanitation, efficiency, (c) economy, (d) satisfactory nutrition. Such report were made on sanitary conditions of the mess were made directl the sanitary inspector of the camp. Many recommendations v made for improving the efficiency of the mess as judged by the c pleteness and state of repair of its equipment; by the cleanlines this equipment; by the state of orderliness in the storeroom, arrangement of foods in the refrigerator, the system of menus, mess accounting, the amount of savings, and the training of kite personnel. Special attention was given also to the matter of f conservation and economic mess management. An illustration of effect of a few days' special instruction in reduction of waste is in chart No. 71. The main object of the visits of survey partie the mess was to assist in the adoption of such measures as w result in proper nutrition of the soldiers. Instruction was give the construction of menus so as to insure a sufficient supply with excess of each of the important foodstuffs. Such instruction most commonly given at conferences of the mess sergeants or n officers of a single regiment. 3. SUITABILITY OF THE RATION. Detailed quantitative surveys have been made of more than messes scattered through more than 50 camps and extending f October to June. A page from the statistical summaries of th surveys is shown in Table No. 156. This exhibits the average ene value of food supplied, wasted, and consumed per man per day, distribution of fuel value in the food consumed, the percentage each foodstuff wasted, as well as the percentage of the total fuel v wasted, the cost of the food consumed per man per day, the valu the food wasted, and the actual average amount of total waste edible waste. Studies have been made also at a considerable num of camp and regimental exchanges (chart No. 72). The actual av age amount of nutrient materials purchased at the canteen has b estimated at 405 calories per man per day. This added to the to food consumption at the mess of 3,700 calories makes a grand to of about 4,100 calories, or 27.9 calories per pound for the average: dier. This agrees with the theoretical requirement of energy ne sary to enable a soldier of average weight to do a maximum piece work, such as a march of 30 miles in 10 hours carrying a pack other equipment weighing 44 pounds. If a soldier does not do t maximum quantity of work the fuel energy accumulates in his bo in the form of fat, the muscles also hypertrophy, and the result i considerable gain in weight. The average gain estimated in fo different camps (Devens, Grant, Dodge, and Funston) amounts to 74 pounds in three months. The nutritional surveys were calculated to exhibit not only the actual average amount of food consumed but also the average amounts of various articles composing the ration as selected. Table No. 157 shows in parallel columns the amount of each article of food prescribed by garrison ration (A. R. 1221) and the actual average amount of each of these components and substitutive articles selected in 227 messes (Table No. 157). As a result of these studies the food division proposed that the garrison ration be modified in accordance with has through the International Red Cross to American prisoners in GerRed Cross for a ration to be purchased by the Red Cross and supplied Early in September, 1917, a request was received from the American to be used in the training camps of the United States. selected, and that this modified ration be called the training ration the tastes of the men as expressed in these average amounts actually |