 from Korea to Germany, from Alaska to Puerto Rico. All over the world, the United States Army is on the alert to defend our country, you, the American people, against aggression. This is the big picture. An official television report to the nation from the United States Army. Now, to show you part of the big picture, here is Captain Carl Zimmerman. The advancements of Army medicine are brought home to all of us in this report of lives saved in Korea. The chances are almost 98 out of 100 that a wounded man will be saved once our medical people have reached him. And that's a fine record, and there are many reasons for this. Broader training for our medical personnel, quicker evacuation from the battle zone, research to find improved methods for treatment. Outstanding among the many research installations in the Army is Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. And that's our story today. It begins at the front line in Korea. I didn't remember much after the grenade landed in our bunker. They brought me back with other guys who'd run out of luck. That day I saw a lot of things I want to forget. A lot of good soldiers who would make roll call next day. Everything was medics, bandages and bottles. Oh yeah, needles. Morphine for the kid alongside. His patrol got back this morning. We wondered where we were going from here, how badly we were wounded. Would we get shipped back to the States? We didn't know, but we could hope. Everything was still kind of hazy. Medics and docs went to work and they gave me a lot of attention. I needed blood bad, and got it. I can still see that bottle hanging there, seen with every drip I was getting stronger. They moved us back to a hospital. A lot of us needed extra medical attention, including operations, and then evacuation. But again we wondered where, where are we going? All the nurse would tell us was that we were on our way back home. It was all we wanted to hear. A few days later I got the answer. We got off the plane and into an ambulance. Brought us here to Washington to Walter Reed. I knew that name. I'd read about this place and heard a lot about it from the nurses and medics. Yeah, we were home. Even from here it looked good. I would be here for quite a while, they said. They said I had to get a replacement for something I left in Korea. Before he arrived here, PFC Phillip Thornhill knew little about this institution, except that its reputation had by grapevine and legend, reached the foxholes of combat. Today on its 320 acre site in Washington D.C. and Forestland, Maryland, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, of which the hospital is but one part, is a great military medical installation. It not only treats our wounded and cares for the otherwise sick, but is engaged in a wide medical research program. In this research program, doctors and scientists are carrying on the quiet search for knowledge which will speed the recovery of the sick today and save the lives of more of our soldiers tomorrow. And in the clinic rooms, the fight continues, hated by weapons like this giant million volt X-ray machine, pinpointing disease and destroying it. To this center come many of the more difficult and challenging cases in Army and Air Force medicine, amputees, cancer and heart patients, those with brain injuries, liver disease, polio victims. And here is utilized new equipment, such as the electrocardioscope, which measures the beat of a man's heart, and shows it on a viewing screen. The Army's best known medical center is commanded by Major General Paul H. Streit. Today, every field station on the firing line is an emergency entrance to Walter Reed and other Army hospitals. To be wounded on the battle front no longer means needless and agonizing suffering, followed by infection and death. Today, once Army medical staffs get to a wounded man, the chances are 98 out of 100 that his life will be saved. No matter how badly hurt, no matter what kind of medicine or surgery he needs, the man has a 98% chance of recovery. No patient in any hospital in the world can get more expert attention or more devoted care than the American soldier in his own Army hospital. Never before have patients received such good care and never before have so many new medical and surgical methods and educational programs saved as many Army limbs and lives. I therefore am proud of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the great staffs which operate here. Private Thornhill, now a citizen of Walter Reed, begins the long journey towards recovery, a journey of pain, hard work and adjustment. They sent me to Ward 33, amputee ward. I figured it would be a gloomy place, but it wasn't. I got to know this big room pretty well. Got to know the men in it too. You know you forget about your own troubles. Just look around and you find somebody a lot worse off than you. You want to help the other guy forget. Mostly about the old outfit back in Korea and the jobs we had back home. Getting well takes a lot of time. You don't always sit around doing nothing. Night time is the worst. Everybody settles down. You're alone. Do a lot of thinking. Find a lot of things. We all do. Jack with one leg. Chuck one leg. Bill one arm. Red no legs. The length of one arm and hutch one leg. But in the morning it's back to work. Just as Private Thornhill starts toward rehabilitation and a new hand, so and other parts of the hospital, other patients are today progressing step by halting step along their individually prescribed courses of treatment. Men must learn how to walk again with artificial limbs or their own. The road back to good health is not easy at Walter Reed. Patients do not sit back and leave it to medicine and surgery alone. Once disease and infection have been killed, limbs and bodies must be made strong again. The outstanding results achieved here are obtained not by miracles, but by hard work on the part of the patient and the skill and knowledge of its medical staff. And behind it are research and educational programs which assure the best medicine and methods in the world. It's a tough physical handicap course these patients endure, but with each stretch and bend it's another step near recovery. There's no shortcut to getting well. Sometimes recovery is slow, but aiding the patient are some of the best brains in the business and up-to-date reconditioning equipment. Equipment like this rocking bed, which helps a man to breathe, or hubbored tanks in which the polyostric and fine relief, hot and cold treatments, stimulating new life into hurt limbs, diathermy treatment, and violet ray. All day long by prescription and appointment, patients come and go on their rigid schedules of recovery. Of all its great work in medicine, Walter Reed Army Medical Center is perhaps better known for its amputee patients. The hospital buildings are linked by special ramps to aid all types of wheelchair patients. The Center Theater even has its own wheelchair entrance. Everything possible is done to make the full facilities of the center easily available to its sick. The Center is a world leader in fundamental research of prosthetic or artificial limb. In the limb shop, the finest prosthetic appliances are designed. The old shoulder strap method of operating artificial limbs has now been replaced by a new surgical procedure named Cineplasty. After a special operation and months of reconditioning, Private Thornhill at last arrived at the day when he too got his new hand. He no longer had to watch his buddies. Well, here it is, Thornhill. It's all finished. Yes, sir. It works just like your hooks. It's the same socket. You ought to be able to use it fine. This is absolutely the best one that's ever been able to be made. You notice that the glove is made to look just like any ordinary hand. I see. And the mechanism works just like the hooks. Pull the cable. Open. I see, sir. Pull. Close. Pull. Off. Sir, how much pressure can you put on them to break them on them? Well, now, this will do about 40 pounds. I'll show you how it works later on. Let's try it. There you are, Thornhill. How does it feel? It feels kind of funny, sir. Yes, I think you'll find it'll feel funny for a little while, but with practice you'll get used to it and pretty soon it'll be just like a real flesh and blood hand. I see, sir. Be surprised how strong that is. Here, here's 40 pounds down here. How about picking that up for me? Okay, sir. Now try it with your other hand. There you see? I see, sir. And you'll find that it's delicate enough to pick up an egg shell, too. Here. That'll give you some idea of how versatile it is. Yes, sir. Now I'll be seeing you again next week, and you keep practicing with that, and I'll expect to find pretty good improvement in it. Okay, sir. Good luck. Yes, sir. To go with the mechanical hand, the amputee is given a life-like plastic glove, which is colored to the exact skin tones of his natural hand. This glove has fingerprints, palm lines, veins, and even freckles and scars. These skin gloves are being approved constantly and are subjected to weather tests and durability examinations. Back in civilian life, they're a big morale booster. When an amputee wears one, it's hard to tell he has lost a hand. For heavier duty, an improved hook is also issued to each amputee, but even this can perform domestic duties of the most delicate kind. It is then only a matter of practice and adjustment before the amputee can do almost anything with his new hand. He realizes that it's almost as useful as the one he left in Korea. In the occupational therapy room, other soldiers work their way slowly towards good health. It might be an amputee making a leather wallet or a wounded combat veteran busy in the hospital print shop. Even here, the patients are supervised by specialists and human understanding. Therapists who with a smile and a friendly gesture can further the healing where medicine has stopped. Busy hands make occupied minds, and even if the hands have to be helped, patients enjoy this kind of treatment. But only a few of the center's patients come to Walter Reed in search of a new hand or leg. Some living in a world of silence come here in search of better hearing. One of the center's most active clinics is audiology, the army's only hearing and speech correction center. Electronic testing devices are used for diagnosis, in some cases which need special testing. Hearing aids are given those who need them. To find out the decibel loss of hearing, tests like this one are used. To the patient's fingers are attached electrodes which pick up any change in skin resistance. The examiner then sends a tone through the earphones on the patient's head, sending a mild electrical shock through his other arm. When and if the patient hears the tone, he anticipates the shock and the psychometer measures the skin resistance change in his fingers. In a special room at the clinic, another testing device is used to measure hearing. It is this electric chair-looking machine. An operator sends a clicking sound through the earphones on the patient's head. If the patient hears the sound, he involuntarily blinks his eye. It is impossible for the patient to control this reflex, and the phonograph pickup with a blunt-ended wire records the reaction on a screen. When their diagnosis is complete, each patient is fitted with a hearing aids due to his particular hearing loss, and then begins a rehabilitation program, including speech reading. Good morning. This is a class in speech reading, and I'm going to show you how speech reading can help your hearing. For instance, all of these things are indications of what people are going to say. If you watch me, I will show you. Watch my facial expression and my lips. What did I say? I watched my facial expression. That's right. You got it because you watched my facial expression and you watched my lips. Now let's try another one. Watch my facial expression again and watch my lips. What did I say now? That's right. Men who were wounded, men whose ears have been deafened by the continuous roar of heavy guns, and an airman whose defect was caused by the scream of jet engines. All meet here on common ground. They watch their buddies act out soundless dramas at the clinic's barn theater and improve their lip-reading technique by following the silent dialogue. And they learn how to listen again using a hearing aid. The hearing aids must learn how to do the everyday things which must now be done differently. Patients with all types of speech defects are rehabilitated here, including those suffering from complete loss of speech and stuttering. And some adult patients must again begin at the beginning. As new methods meet new demands, it has become more and more obvious that the great strength of army medicine rests in the research laboratories and in the ability of doctor-scientists to stay abreast of changing types of warfare. Backbone of army medical education and research is the Army Medical Service Graduate School, another part of Walter Reed. Its mission is research in biological and medical sciences as well as advanced training of army medical officers. In these buildings were tested and found valuable the new antibiotic drugs which may have saved Private Thornhill's life and which may protect our soldiers in whatever land they serve. Here too, army doctors receive graduate training in special diseases affecting the military. They follow in the steps of Major Walter Reed, Conqueror of Yellow Fever, and the man after whom this installation is named. Few people realized that some of the major battles of the last war were waged in this building on the hill. Not a single soldier, even those serving in disease-ridden areas, died of typhus. This can be partly traced to the work done in these laboratories. Gateway to a new era in medical research is the school's radioactive isotope lab where atomic power is used for clinical investigation and treatment. Radioactive iodine, sent straight from Oak Ridge, is made into what you might call an atomic cocktail and is swallowed by a patient whose thyroid condition is under investigation. 24 hours later, under a huge Geiger counter, the patient is measured for the amount of radioactivity retained by the thyroid. In the biologic division of the school, our produce scores of vaccines for our army and the struggle to provide immunization against disease for our fighting men wherever they serve is the daily problem of these specialists. To improve inoculation methods, a multiple-dose high-pressure injection gun is being tested. It is hoped it will replace the hypodermic needle. The jet gun has no needle and it shoots vaccine into the patient by compressed air. With this new injection gun, large groups of people could be treated quickly. More than ever before, blood is today a leading factor in the recovery of the wounded. Here again, research is tirelessly at work. Glass containers, now used for the collection and storage of blood, stand little chance of survival in the event of atomic attack. Under test now at Walter Reed and other army hospitals is the army's possible answer, a durable plastic blood container which remains unbroken even when dropped. And more limbs and lives are being saved by the use of artery and bone banks. Human arteries are being kept alive for about 30 days and by skillful surgery, are put back as replacements for any damaged artery which had to be removed. Also at Walter Reed is the Advanced Medical Technician School. Enlisted soldiers and wax receive a year's intensified course in practical nursing. These medical technicians will provide additional needed support to the graduate commissioned nurses. A comprehensive dental program is also being carried out at Walter Reed and new research instruments like this cephalometer which x-rays the whole jaw are being used. Advanced educational and training courses for officers in the dental corps of the United States Army and Air Force are another part of the program. New techniques are taught and the entire program is designed to improve the dental health of all our citizens. The research behind army medicine is not confined to the buildings at Walter Reed, but stretches out across the world in jungle, mountain, or village. Expeditions are sent out like this one to Malaya to study scrub titus. In search of knowledge, the scientists deliberately expose themselves to virus-carrying lice. Natives and scientists alike are subjected to the same infections and the same medicines. The doctors of this expedition wanted to know what effect the bite of the lice would have on themselves. Such an innocent-looking bite has been the cause of wiping out the entire population of a Malayan village. Only recently has science found an effective antibiotic which can fight this form of titus. Under the microscope, the scrubbed titus looks like this. Back at Walter Reed, a more intensified study is made of the findings of these self-sacrificing doctors, and this is what the mite looks like enlarged into a drawing. Doctors and scientists search for the answers to diseases like hepatitis, a liver infection. A special study of this disease is being made at Walter Reed and patients are kept under constant observation. Everything the patients do is watched and noted. Tests and analysis reveal the course of the disease and the progress of the patients. Each patient lives on a controlled diet and the food they eat is measured to a milligram. Then it is served under close supervision. But the day all patients wait for is the day of their discharge and they carry with them a prayer they remember. God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. Courage to change the things we can and wisdom to know the difference. Private Thornhill's day came too. His rehabilitation was now complete enough for his discharge. He faces the future with confidence and a new hand. But behind him at the center men are busy at the game of getting well. Their handicaps forgotten in the next challenge. In every ward every day doctors, scientists nurses and the soldiers they serve continue the humanitarian cycle forging new links to strengthen the reputation of this great Army Medical Center, Walter Reed. Adapting new methods of medicine making yesterday's experiments the medical practices of today. That's what's being done at Walter Reed and other medical centers throughout your Army. Now next week on The Big Picture we'll take you to the far east and to Europe to show how information and education is brought to the soldier overseas. This is Captain Carl Zimmerman inviting you to be with us then. The Big Picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the Army at home and overseas produced by the Signal Corps Photographic Center presented by the U.S. Army in cooperation with this station. You can be an important part of The Big Picture. You can proudly serve with the best equipped the best trained the best fighting team in the world today the United States Army.