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Bowers (Rose A.) papers
Biomed.0176
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Papers of Rose Alexander Bowers : U.S. Army contract surgeon
Creator:
Bowers, Rose Alexander
Identifier/Call Number: Biomed.0176
Physical Description:
0.5 Linear Feet
(1 document box)
Date (inclusive): 1918-1919
Abstract: Rose Alexander Bowers was born in 1887 and graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1909. From August
19th to November 15th, 1918, she served as a contract surgeon with the U.S. Army Medical Corps, assigned to Camp Grant, Rockford,
Illinois. Contract surgeons were civilians employed under contract in accordance with law, Army regulations, and executive
orders, without military rank or status. Only nine were employed at the outbreak of World War I, but because of the medical
emergency of the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, this number rose to 899 by November 1918. Women were used as contract surgeons
for the first time during World War I; fifty-five women contract surgeons were employed at the time of the armistice. These
papers span a period of barely three months. They include a few personal items, but the bigger portion consists of the daily
information bulletins issued by the commanding medical officer of the camp hospital to which Dr. Bowers had been assigned.
These messages convey with gripping directness the reality of the emergency faced by hospital personnel and how it was met.
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Language of Material: Materials are in English.
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[Identification of item], Papers of Rose Alexander Bowers : U.S. Army contract surgeon (Collection 176). UCLA Library Special
Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9942381013606533
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Gift to the Biomedical Library received from the Los Angeles County Medical Association, 1992.
Rose Alexander Bowers was born in 1887. In 1909 she graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
and was listed in the American Medical Directory first in 1911. From August 19th to November 15th, 1918, she served as a contract
surgeon with the U.S. Army Medical Corps, assigned to Camp Grant, Rockford, Illinois, participating in one of the great medical
dramas of her time. By 1923 she was practicing in Whittier, California and soon moved to Los Angeles, where she continued
a private practice specializing in neurology and psychiatry (also her husband's, Paul Eugene Bowers, specialty). Her last
listing, as retired, was found in the American Medical Association Directory, 1969.
The use of contract surgeons in the United States Army dates back to pre-Revolutionary War days and seems to have extended
past the time of World War I. The term describes civilians employed under contract in accordance with law, Army regulations,
and executive orders, without military rank or status. The term apparently originated during or just after the Civil War;
during that conflict the number of contract surgeons (officially known as "acting assistant surgeons") was greater than the
number of regular medical officers, but their use "declined sharply after creation of the Medical Reserve Corps in 1908. Only
nine were employed at the outbreak of World War I, though this number rose to 899 by 15 November 1918. In World War I, women
contract surgeons were used for the first time, serving as anesthetists, laboratory technicians, dispensary physicians and
in other capacities. At the time of the armistice, 55 women contract surgeons were employed." (Crosby, Alfred W., Jr., in:
"History, Science, and Politics: Influenza in America, 1918-1976," ed. by June E. Osborn, pp.5-13; Sorrell, C. N. "Some Considerations
on the Early Development of U.S. Army Medical Department.")
These papers span a period of barely three months. In addition to a few personal items, the main portion consists of information
bulletins issued by the commanding medical officer of the camp hospital to which Dr. Bowers had been assigned. These messages
convey with gripping directness the reality of the emergency faced by hospital personnel during the last week of September
and the month of October, 1918. The first two weeks' leaflets document the incredibly swift rise of the patient population,
from circa 700 to 2,936 one week later; in another week, the count was 3,596 patients and 100 deaths per day; there were 1,500
pneumonia patients on the wards. During Week Two supplies and drugs were running low; healthy personnel were being moved to
tents in order to free barracks for more patient beds; routines for notifying and dealing with relatives of critically ill
patients were devised, and personnel assigned to keep track of the corpses and their belongings. Noted were the increasing
exhaustion (but continued dedication) of health care personnel, the shortage of thermometers, but also the influx of nearby
enlisted personnel and town volunteers to help clean the wards and feed the personnel. By Week Three admissions and deaths
were thankfully declining, some emergency nurses and volunteers could be released, and there was room to hold patients in
the hospital for a longer convalescence. By Week Four, there was time to exhort the hospital population to invest in the Liberty
Bond drive, to worry about the format of daily and monthly reports from each ward, and to complain about discipline on the
wards.
The collection is organized chronologically in one sequence.
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Processed by Pat L. Walter.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating
existing description of our materials that contains language
that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they
could be described more accurately, by filling out the form
located on our website:
Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special
Collections.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Physicians, Women -- United States.
Military Medicine -- History -- United States.
Influenza -- History -- United States.
Contract Services.
Camp Grant (Ill.)
Bowers, Rose Alexander