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Fourteen of the general hospitals being constructed by the War Department in as many different sections of the United States are to be used as reconstruction hospitals, where the maimed may be restored to their fullest usefulness. To each will be attached workshops, where at least the rudiments of different trades may be practiced; gardens and farm-land for outdoor work, and every possible facility for encouraging the cripple to do his utmost toward self-restoration. Here, too, will be entered the work of the "reconstruction aids," a corps of instructors in physical training, specially trained for the work of drilling crippled men in the fullest use of their remaining muscles, to the end that they may exercise heir faculties to the utmost. He degree to which the stump of an arm or a leg may become mobile and useful has been carefully calculated as a result of French experience; it is surprising to a sound man to discover how useful half a forearm, for instance, may become. The corps of reconstruction aids is being recruited from among men and women instructors in gymnastics under the direction of Miss Marguerite Sanderson of Boston.

The fitting of artificial members to missing hands and legs has become almost a science in itself. Wonderful results have been achieved in Europe with marvelous and complicated hand mechanisms that enable their wearers to perform almost miraculous feats. For most crippled soldiers, however, the simpler forms, variations of the plain hook or the various forms of clamps for holding tools, are much more serviceable as working hands. A specialized body of surgeons is studying the whole subject under the direction of the Surgeon General Gorgas, with a view of fitting every American soldier who may need such artificial aid with the type best adapted to his civilian needs.

The exact point in the course of his rehabilitation and re-education at which the invalided soldier is to be discharged from the army and become a civilian again will be determined in each individual case by circumstances, and as a whole, by the action of Congress. What has been broadly outlined above covers substantially the work of the Medical Department of the army. When the soldier has been stimulated with ambition, and compelled to acquire the habit of work, taught to use what powers he has to their fullest usefulness, rendered as physically sound as medical science can make him, and fitted with and taught to use the form of artificial limb best adapted to his abilities, there is little more the army is through with him, however, it is the belief of those who have been making an intensive study of this subject, that he should have determined, or had determined for him, what particular trade or occupation he is to follow after his discharge, so that he may not only receive some special training in that direction, but be ready to step immediately from the hospital either into a job or into a special school for re-education. In Canada, out of 19.000soldiers discharged as incapacitated in the first three years of the war, only 900 required re-education; the remainder, more than 95 per cent, were able to resume their former occupations, or take up other employment, immediately upon leaving the hospitals.

The general plan of reconstruction work contemplates caring for each disabled soldier or sailor in the reconstruction hospital nearest his former home. The plan of vocational rehabilitation contemplates training him to do something as nearly like his former occupation as possible. For instance, a journeyman carpenter who has lost an arm may be trained into a good superintendent of construction. If this can be done by placing him in a school where he will have an opportunity to learn how to read blueprints and understand specifications, such a school will be found. So far as possible, existing schools are to be utilized; most of the large industrial organizations already maintain technical schools for their employes, and these and other similar institutions will be opened to the discharged crippled soldier. And while the soldier or sailor is undergoing such re-education he will continue to receive the disability compensation to which he is entitled under the War Risk Insurance act. If the advice of those who have studied European experience is taken, any pension to which he may be entitled is to be based upon the nature and extent of his injuries and not upon his earning capacity.

Obtaining jobs for the rehabilitated and reeducated soldier will be part of the function of whatever board or central authority may be created. Already hundreds of manufacturers have promised to give positions to such men, so far as they are qualified to fill them. The whole aim of the rehabilitation program is to make each of its beneficiaries competent to hold up his end in competition with his fellow-workmen who are physically whole.

Both the reconstruction hospitals and the general scheme of rehabilitation in all probability will be open to civilian employes of the Government, injured in the discharge of their duty, and under certain restrictions the vocational rehabilitation may be made available for any person injured in any civil employment under conditions to be established by the Rehabilitation Board. Out of the emergency of war, therefore, there will thus develop a permanent asset for peace, a long step toward solving the problem of putting the industrial cripple as well as the war cripple back on the payroll.