Page:Doctors Aweigh.djvu/35

10 occurred, many men aboard ship were below deck and in various stages of undress. At the call of "battle stations," they ran to their stations without waiting to pull on their clothes. Some wore trousers and no shirts. Some were in their underclothes. Others wore only a pair of trunks, or sprang naked from the showers. Those wearing undershirt and trousers were burned only on the arms and face. Those with trousers but no shirts were burned over the entire body above the waist. Those wearing trunks were burned over the entire body except about the hips. This experience has led to the orders, now in force throughout the United States Navy, that at "battle stations" the men shall be fully clothed; and many wear "flash-proof" clothing.

In addition to their burns, numbers of the men had been overboard in water heavily coated with fuel oil, and were covered with it from head to foot. A number of these patients were in a state of shock, even when there was no sign of any physical injury. Those who were burned and covered with fuel oil presented a serious problem. No attempt could be made to remove the oil at the time. Immediate local treatment for the burns had to be applied over the oil.

How to remove fuel oil is a problem for extensive research. The best method found at Pearl Harbor to remove the heavy oil was by the use of a gauze or cotton sponge saturated with mineral oil. Of course this must be done slowly and with all the gentleness possible. The mineral oil leaves a thin film which, however, is not difficult to cleanse away. At least this method is preferable to the old one of using tincture of green soap. Since then some common proprietary preparations have been found to be most useful as detergents.

As soon as possible after their reception at the hospital or aboard the hospital ship all the burn cases were given a tanning process.

Aboard the Solace all the stainless-steel buckets available were collected in the pharmacy. One pound of tannic-acid crystals was added to each bucket of water, and these were distributed to each