In Honor of Veteran's Day

By Eve Higginbotham SM, MD, ML

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the reactivation of the University of Pennsylvania’s 20th General Hospital, deployed in summer 1940 as part of the World War II China–Burma campaign. The hospital's commissioning, preparations, and staff training took place in Philadelphia over a 2-year period. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the hospital was organized and ready for its mission to serve troops in the Burma–China Theater. The 20th General Hospital entered active service on May 15, 1942, with a large and enthusiastic send-off from a supportive crowd at 30th Street Station.

The 20th General Hospital deployment has an enduring legacy because of the leadership of renowned Penn faculty, including Dr. Isidor S. Ravdin, and the contributions of the hospital's staff: 59 medical, surgical, laboratory, and dental specialists, 120 nurses, and approximately 600 enlisted men, most with ties to the university’s hospital and medical school. According to the Archival Collections U.S. Army 20th General Hospital Records, the 20th General Hospital of WWII served eight times more patients than the university's World War I base hospital. The achievements of Ravdin and the Penn medical team were notable, including Major Harold Scheie’s treatment of Lord Louis Montbatten after Montbatten’s eye was injured during an inspection tour in North Burma. Dr. Scheie, an associate professor of ophthalmology in the medical school, returned to Penn after the war and in 1972 became the founding director of the Scheie Eye Institute. Additionally, the collective wartime medical contributions of the Penn faculty and staff were significant. The Archival Collections U.S. Army 20th General Hospital Records note that even dealing with battle casualties, scrub typhus, cerebral malaria, and other challenges, the overall mortality rate was only 0.4%—no worse than for civilian hospitals of the time. Dr. Ravdin’s staff integrated modern practices—such as antibiotics, innovations in air conditioning, and the application of sound surgical principles all successfully demonstrated that war-related surgery can be done with as much care and as civilian surgery and produce similarly favorable outcomes. This is just one example of Penn’s long-term engagement in military health, which dates from the Civil War to current conflicts.