Naval History and Heritage Command
Navy Medicine
“This is the Doctor's First Patient Today.” Marines were heavily engaged in ground combat. When casualties occurred, Navy corpsmen assigned to their units provided front line medical attention. Drawing, Pen and Ink on Paper; by Charles Waterhouse; 1967. Click to download. (88-162-ZH)
Navy medicine has a long and proud history. Continental Navy ships housed the first sickbays, where ship surgeons, assisted by loblolly boys, practiced their healing craft. Although science and medicine have changed over the last three centuries, Navy medicine’s mission of healthcare and readiness has remained constant.
Notable Navy Medical Personnel
- Benjamin Harrison Adams
- George Wehnes Calver
- Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee
- Rear Admiral Bartholomew W. Hogan, USN
- John E. Kilmer, Hospitalman, USN
- LT Weedon E. Osborne, USN
- Paul Vaughan
- Guy Sedgwick Vogan
- James Allen Zimble
- Naval Medical Community Medal of Honor Recipients
Oral Histories
- U.S. Navy Nurse in the Pacific Theater during World War II: Recollections of CAPT Ann Bernatitus, NC, USN, (Ret.)
- Oral History of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941: Excerpt from Oral History of LT Horace D. Warden, MC (Medical Corps), USN, Medical Officer Aboard USS Breese (DM-18) on 7 December 1941
- Recollections of the Battle of Midway by LT Joseph P. Pollard, MC, USN, Medical Officer on board USS Yorktown (CV-5)
- U.S. Navy Nurse in Saigon, 1963, During Vietnam Conflict
- U.S. Navy Nurse Prisoner of War in the Philippines, 1942-1945
- Recollections of LCDR Samuel Robert Sherman, MC, USNR, Flight Surgeon on USS Franklin (CV-13)
- Appendectomy Performed on Fourth War Patrol of USS Seadragon, 1942
- Support for Normandy June 1944; Recollections of Nurses
Videos
- Wings for the Doctor: Naval Flight Surgeon (1971) – Part 1
- Wings for the Doctor: Naval Flight Surgeon (1971) – Part 2
- Wings for the Doctor: Naval Flight Surgeon (1971) – Part 3
- Navy Medicine at War: Final Victory (2009)
Publications
Additional Reading
- Navy Medicine Website
- WWII Navy Medical Facilities
- USNS Mercy Sets Sail for Pacific Partnership 2010
- T-AKE Ship Class Grows: USNS Matthew Perry Delivered to MSC, USNS Charles Drew Launched
- Hospital Ships Fact File
- 60 Years of Navy Medical Research Helps Save Lives Today
- Carlos Andreson (1905-1978) – art depicting medical subjects at naval hospitals
- Register of Patients at Naval Hospital Washington D.C. 1814
- Navy Nurse Corps General Uniform Instructions 1917
- Establishment of Navy Nurse Corps
- Surgeons of the War of 1812
- Surgeon's Mates of the War of 1812
- Navy Nurses Behind Enemy Lines in the Philippines
Additional Reading on the 1918 Influenza Epidemic
- “The Most Terrifying Experience”: The U.S. Navy and the Pandemic of 1918, historical essay by NHHC historian Thomas Shepherd, Ph.D.
- Influenza of 1918 (Spanish Flu) and the U.S. Navy
- The Great Flu Crisis at Mare Island Navy Yard, and Vallejo, California
- A Winding Sheet and a Wooden Box, recollections of Navy Nurse Josie Mabel Brown
- Philadelphia, Nurses, and the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918, James F. Armstrong, RN, BSN, CCRN
- A Forgotten Enemy: PHS's [Public Health Service] Fight Against the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
- Account of the 1918 Influenza by Vice Admiral Albert Gleaves, Commander of Convoy Operations in the Atlantic, 1917-1919
- Influenza on a Naval Transport, by W.F. McAnally, Lieutenant, Medical Corps, United States Navy
- The Influenza Epidemic of 1918, by Carla R. Morrisey, RN, BSN
- Personal account by Rear Admiral William B. Caperton of the 1918 Influenza on
Armored Cruiser No. 4, USS Pittsburgh, at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Influenza-Related Medical Terms
- Influenza at the United States Naval Hospital, Washington, D.C., by R.M. Kennedy, Rear Admiral, Medical Corps, United States Navy.
- The Pandemic of Influenza in 1918-1919, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare
Public Health Service, National Office of Vital Statistics
Documentary Histories
- Captain Frank L. Pleadwell, Medical Inspector, to Vice Admiral William S. Sims, Commander, United States Naval Forces Operating in European Waters, 9/13/1917
- Surgeon General of the Navy Doctor William C. Braisted, to Vice Admiral William S. Sims, Commander, United States Naval Forces Operating in European Waters, 3/12/1918
Finding Aids
- Naval Medicine
- Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
- Records of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, 1824-1970
- Nurses in the U.S. Navy: Bibliography and Sources
Navy Hospital Ships
- Intrepid (Ketch), 1803-1804
- Pawnee (Screw Sloop of War), 1858-1882
- Ben Morgan, 1861-1865
- Red Rover, 1862-1865
- Home, 1863-1865
- Idaho I (Steam Sloop), 1866-1874
- Sea Gate (Id. No. 2415), 1907-1919
- Relief (II), 1908-1910
- Adrian (Id. No. 2362), 1918-1919
- Southport (Screw Steamer), 1918-1919
- Relief (VI) (AH-1), 1920-1946
- Solace (I) (AH-2), 1898-1921
- Comfort (I) (AH-3), 1918-1921
- Mercy (I) (AH-4), 1918-1934
- Pinkney (APH-2), 1941-1946
- Rixey (APH-3), 1941-1946
- Solace (II) (AH-5), 1941-1946
- Tryon (APH-1), 1942-1946
- Comfort (II) (AH-6), 1944-1946
- Hope (AH-7), 1944-1946
- Mercy (II) (AH-8), 1944-1946
- Bountiful (AH-9), 1944-1946
- Samaritan (AH-10), 1944-1946
- Refuge (AH-11), 1944-1946
- Haven (AH-12), 1946-1957
- Benevolence (AH-13), 1945-1947
- Tranquillity (AH-14), 1945-1946
- Consolation (AH-15), 1945-1955
- Repose (AH-16), 1945-1970
- Sanctuary (AH-17), 1945-1971
- Rescue (AH-18), 1945-1946
- Mercy (III) (T-AH-19), 1986-Present
- Comfort (III) (T-AH-20), 1987-Present
Blog Posts and H-Grams
- First female Navy captain oversaw greatest growth of Nurse Corps
- Remembering USS Relief (AH 1), the Navy’s Floating Fortress of Health
- Alene Duerk: Celebrating the 98th birthday of a Navy icon
- Remembering PhM3c John Andrew Haskins, Hero of Port Chicago
- The Wartime Experiences of Two Women at Iwo Jima and Okinawa
- Navy Doctor Becomes First Physician in Space
- Navy Nurses #OperatingForward 108 Years Later
- Honoring the Legacy of Navy Nurses Worldwide
- Devotion to Duty: Four Nurses Receive Navy Cross in 1920
- Lenah Higbee: A Continuing Legacy and Trailblazer for Navy Women
- H-022-1: The Worst Killer of All—The Spanish Influenza, 1918–19
- H-Gram 043: The Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918–19
Selected Images
Poster; by Jon Whitcomb; 1944 (65-014-Z)
Ward scene during the 1930s, with a Navy doctor, nurse and corpsman attending to a patient. (NH 82747)
U.S. Naval Hospital, Chelsea, Massachusetts. Photograph taken June 2, 1919. (NH 115723)
USS Columbus (CG-12) ship's doctor examines a patient in the sick bay, during the filming of a movie by a Johns Hopkins University film crew, 2 April 1965. (NH 98464)
USS Missouri (BB-63). Commander Louis E. Gilge, Medical Corps, makes his rounds in the battleship's sick bay as Pharmacist's Mate Second Class Frank Mancini stands by at left. Photographed during Missouri's shakedown cruise, circa August 1944.
Navy Doctor, drawing, charcoal on paper; by Joseph Hirsch; C. 1943; Unframed Dimensions 22H X 15W. (88-159-FT as a Gift of Abbott Laboratories)
Staff Officers of Naval Hospital, Memphis, TN 1863. (NH 53388)
Corpsman Lamont driving ambulance at Naval Hospital, New London, Connecticut. Died in flu epidemic September 27, 1918. (NH 95251)
Medical Aid Sign from the USNS Comfort used during Hurricane Katrina. (NHHC 2012-57-1)
USS Sanctuary (AH-17) ambulatory ward filled with happy ex-prisoners of war on their way back to their native lands, after three and a half years in a Japanese prison camp, September 1945. (NH 75344)
Captain Norman J. Blackwood, USN (Medical Corps) seated, second from right, with the Officers of USS Mercy (ID # 1305, later AH-4), May 1918
Cape Gloucester, New Britain, December 1943, aboard a Coast Guard-manned Landing Ship, Tank (LST), a Navy doctor and Coast Guard pharmacist's mate perform an emergency operation on a wounded man. (NH 94755)
U. S. Navy Ambulance Boat No. 1 just before her launching at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 24 July 1919. (NH 41799)
LT (jg) Ann Bernatitus, (NC), USN (88-195-G)
Munsan-Ni, Korea. Doctor and corpsmen irrigate muscle tissue, as a wounded man is prepared for an operation, at the Medical Company, 23 September 1952. (80-G-K-13003)
![Photo #: NH 97241 "Say 'Ah-ah-h'"](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20201218034817im_/https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/browse-by-topic/communities/navy-medicine/_jcr_content/body/media_asset_1785022813/image.img.jpg/1602771877923.jpg "Photo #: NH 97241 "Say 'Ah-ah-h'"")
Say 'Ah-ah-h' Cartoon by E. Verdier, concerning the distractive effects of a Yeoman(F) on an officer, published as cover art for the October 1918 issue of Ukmyh Kipzy Puern, the magazine of the U.S Naval Cable Censor Office, San Francisco, California. The magazine's title is in Bently's Code, and translates as The Monthly 'Gob'. The cartoon, and the face mask drawn in upper right, may refect countermeasures against the 1918-19 influenza epidemic. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. (NH 97241)
Published: Thu Oct 15 10:34:37 EDT 2020
