Original Title/Caption: “Medical officer, Captain John Branson, of Concord, New Hampshire, giving attention to wounded American soldiers.”

Description: In this black and white photograph, two wounded American soldiers rest on stretchers on the ground.  They are covered in blankets to the chest, and a medical officer crouches down to check on the man on the right.  This photograph was taken between 1942 and 1945 by the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Source: “Medical officer, Captain John Branson, of Concord, New Hampshire, giving attention to wounded American soldiers.”  Photograph, between 1942 and 1945.  From Library of Congress: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Call number LC-USW33- 024266-C.  http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8e01068 (accessed March 20, 2007).

Historical discussion: According to the Technical Information Division of the Office of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, 8 percent of wounded soldiers who reached hospitals at the front during World War I died from their wounds (Technical Information Division, Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army 10).

See Technical Information Division, Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, “The Physically Disabled,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 239 (May 1945), 10-19.