Medical advances to save battlefield wounded described at Harborview Hospital on March 13, 1942.

  • By HistoryLink.org Staff
  • Posted 6/06/2001
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 3339

On March 13, 1942, Dr. Louis P. Gambee, professor of clinical surgery at University of Oregon Medical School, speaks to the Surgical Society at Harborview County Hospital in Seattle. He describes improved surgical techniques on the battlefield that are saving wounded men. He describes new sulfa drugs that reduce bacteria and infections, the administration of plasma, better ways of treating shock, and better anesthesia.

Specialists like Dr. Gambee often lectured in Seattle because there was no medical school in the state. The University of Washington Medical School opened in 1946.


Sources:

James R. Warren, The War Years: A Chronicle of Washington State in World War II (Seattle: History Ink and University of Washington Press, 2000), 15.


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