Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Deer Hunting Third Report - Avoiding Boredom

The deer are not cooperating.  Various theories are in circulation.  The venerable Moon Deer Theory that posits a full moon changes their activity.  The Acorn Cycle Theory, which notes a multi year cycle whereby that tasty treat has a bumper year in 2025.  So they could be camped under Oak Trees, lolling about.  The upshot - no pun intended - is that we trying multiple sites trying to figure them out.

I set up a ground blind back at the spot where I got my first deer back in 2020.  Golf Course Corner has converging trails where they go on and off the abandoned course.  Basically a big green deer feeder that covers many acres.

For a ground blind you need to be wily.  This is where my Grandpa skills, specifically Hide and Seek and Blanket Fort building pay off.

Behold, the Blanket Fort of Doom.


Camo fabric wrapped around some trees and posts.  Then festooned with the dead ferns that grow everywhere in this section.  Not bad I'd say, the point is to break up your outline.  Deer's eyes are like using your photo editor with the Contrast function dialed way, way up.  Of course I'll be sitting in there and my head and shoulders will be visible.  So.....


Sometimes I think this is all just goofing around, avoiding boredom.  Forts, dress up costumes, all sorts of Grandpa activities.

On this particular night I decided to leave the crossbow at home.  Deer have a degree of memory from one day to the next.  So I figured it would take a while for them to not be interested in this new patch of brush.  By the way, every trip there I'll add a few more handfuls of dried ferns.  Maybe I'll put some on the hat too!

So you'd assume that a gigantic buck would have stopped 20 yards off and viewed me with disdain.  Well, nope.  But for the first time sitting out I actually did see some deer in the distance, far out of bow or even rifle range.  Dancing about safely on private property.  Alas.


More boredom relief.  For ground blind hunting you should have a bow rest to stabilize your shooting.  I have an entire basement workshop full of robotics surplus.

Here's my fancy robotics bow rest.  It's one leg of a damaged camera tripod bolted to a section of 80/20 aluminum extrusion that we use for prototyping.  With a spike attached to the bottom to plant it in the dirt.

Should work until said dirt is frozen solid.  Chilly days are coming, but probably have a few weeks yet before that.

Monday, October 20, 2025

Tree Shaped Tombstone - Barron Wisconsin

Today an unusual exception to the general rule that if you find one "Tree Shaped Tombstone" in a cemetery you'll always find at least one more.  Nope, this specimen in the cemetery at Barron, Wisconsin, seems to be a loner.

I've been by here a number of times in the past year and so its surprising that I've not stopped to search.  

Barron is an unusual community.  It started out as a typical small Wisconsin farm town.  Cows, implement dealers.  Catholic and Protestant churches.  Lots of taverns, which for all I know also have denominations.  

But by virtue of some industries in town it has a large population of immigrants.  So there's a mosque.  And back when my oldest was playing soccer this little town had an absolute powerhouse team, since many of the families came from places where Futball ruled.

Anyway, its still a nice little place where everyone seems to get along.  The tombstone above is a fairly typical medium style.  Ropes, ferns, an unrolled "scroll of life".  Nice coating of that very specific yellow lichen you find on these.  There's a subsidiary marker that is hard to read.  But of course it just says FATHER.




And then there's this odd little thing on what looks like a corner of the family plot.  I'm not sure what it is, and I don't recall seeing one before.  A corner marker?  Seems sort of drab, and it has no buddies at the other edges.  Was this the mount for some auxiliary object?  Like a planter perhaps?  Seems a bit small for that.  I did cautiously nudge it with my toe to see that it was firmly planted.

Thank goodness it was.  I don't need L.F. Whittemore coming back to haunt me!

Friday, October 17, 2025

The Great Idea - And the Fatal Flaw

I was back for another round of the great Clean Up/Clean Out of my parents house.  It's not for the faint of heart.  I was often dreaming of being off in the woods, watching the trail for a deer to turn up, breathing that fresh North Country air.......   And I had an idea.

Without exception, everything you find in a project like this comes in multiples.  Bottles of an over the counter pain med or vitamin?  Dozens.  Walking canes?  I think I came across eight of them.  And I got an idea.  Not a good idea, nay, it was a Great Idea.

One area we favor for bow hunting is a special type of public land.  Because it is along a river you can hunt there, but not put up any stands or blinds that stay overnight.  So, its pack everything in, and pack it out.  Quietly.

For me that is a fold up blind, my trusty folding chair, my crossbow of course, and ideally a rest for same.  I'm a good shot out to 30 yards with a rest.  The problem is that the one I like to use is a bit big and klunky.  So....why not just modify one of these walking canes?  Lightweight, adjustable, and there were so many that I just took four or five home for experiments!

Here's my first version.  Simple is best.  Just use hose clamps to attach a spike to the bottom.  This lets you just stick it into the ground at the proper spot.

And the crossbow rests very nicely in the original hand grip.


So, what did I forget?  What is the fatal flaw?

I'd forgotten that when I came home with these things that Hank the Dog immediately stopped his happy pup celebrations and started sniffing them with intense interest.  I won't trouble your day with the long list of odors that could be grabbing his attention, but rest assured, any deer within a couple of miles would notice!

I had him check out the final product just to be sure.  Yep....sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff.....


Well, maybe if I cut off the foam hand grip and bury it in a pile of leaves and bark for a couple of weeks, then spray it with anti scent stuff...........

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Second Hunt - 2025

I've been dutiful in getting out to hunt this fall.  Sometimes at the cost of aches, pains and not enough sleep.


Here's the crossbow ready, well still needs to be cocked and loaded with an arrow, for action.  And the blue tub???

Unless you are a hunter you likely have no concept of how much of an advantage deer have.  Sight, smell, hearing courtesy of those big bat like ears....they have every opportunity to detect our presence.

Odor control is a big consideration. Hank the Dog has been banned from the hunting land for about the last month.  And as for other smells, well, there are all sorts of scent blockers and laundry soaps.  Also sprays, I think toothpastes, etc.

But once you have your camo garb all de-scented, how to keep it that way?


Pack it into a tub full of leaves!

I won't bore you with the many photos of me peering out of a blind or stand looking at, perhaps, a few frisky squirrels.  So far no deer has wandered into what I would consider reasonable crossbow range.

The other evening we had a three generation hunt.  I sat in a ground blind with my grandson.  His eyes and ears are better than mine.  A lot better!


Excellent camo and a fairly good job of being quiet were not rewarded.  This time.

My son was hunting on the other side of a river that was less than knee deep.  But when he got a deer just before dark we had a problem.  The deer was evidently not that bothered by an arrow stuck into it from about 3 yards range, and ran off into the night.  The next morning we spent a long time tracking it.  Two observations:  The sumac and maple leaves were actively turning red as we scanned the ground for drops of blood.  And, we figure the deer swigged some sort of video game Potion of Healing, because after a quarter mile or so the drops ceased entirely and the deer was Gone.

We'll try again this weekend.

Monday, October 13, 2025

The Black Bag at age 75. Or thereabouts.

My dad was an Old School physician.  Although he practiced in Minneapolis, his approach to medicine was not much different than that of the country doctors he saw in his youth, showing up at the various farm houses with a horse and buggy, carrying the traditional black bag.  He still did house calls in an era where they were becoming obsolete.  And he carried a black bag when he went.

I remember it.  Mostly I remember its presence, not it being used all that much.  By the time I was actually paying attention to such matters I think his house call days were nearly over.  But he still toted it when he visited his patients in the nursing homes.

Here's the bag.  I of course found it when the duty fell to me of clearing out the room at my parents house that had a high percentage of his medical stuff.


It looks a little less "black bag" now.  That's partly the lighting and partly the underlying leather showing through after all this time.  How much time?


There's a little name plate on it.  When you look on ebay and such places you'll see claims that this is a "Vintage" item from the 1920's or 30's.  But no, the patent date is from 1940.  My older brother claims that there was actually an even earlier bag once, but it got really beat up and was discarded.  I'd guess this item was acquired in the 1950's when he was back from military service and starting out in practice.  He had two different office locations I think, and also did many home, nursing home and hospital call.



The contents of the bag were sort of a time capsule.  Lots of stuff for treating migraines.  More injectable vitamins than you'd expect.  Some sort of under the tongue asthma medicine I'd never heard of.  And this stuff:


As you can guess from the name it was an anti nausea drug used to treat morning sickness.  I looked this one up, it was discontinued in 1969 for causing liver damage.

That sort of fits with the overall contents of the bag.  I think it was in use early in my dad's career then just set aside in the late 1960's.  If I remember it after that it was either as something sitting in my dad's office, or perhaps just my imagination.

Black doctor bags used to be a thing.  They still were when I graduated medical school in 1982.  Every graduate got one for free, courtesy of a drug company.  I didn't use mine much, just a bit in residency.  I have not seen it for a while but its probably around here somewhere.  In keeping with my new one item in, one or more items out policy I will probably ditch it next time I run across it.

The medications that were in the bag were all so old they were likely inert, but I still took them down to the medication disposal box at the local police station.

My dad's old black bag I'll keep.  I cleaned it up and aired it out on the porch for long enough that the nasty medicinal smells have lessened.  I'll pack it up with various mementos from his career and leave an explanatory note in it for when my kids run across it someday.....

Friday, October 10, 2025

Robot School Days

Good progress since the last update.  Even with one session mostly ruined by a false "Intruder Alarm" where everyone was supposed to shelter in place.  I just picked up a really big hammer and waited for the all clear, but it was a big distraction.

The enclosure for the CNC router is done, and I think turned out well.  It has thick vinyl sides, with the front featuring a "shower curtain" so you can open and close for loading material in and out.


We will be adding more team "stuff" to the outside.  Right now its just bumper numbers and a couple of old robot parts.  Oh, in case you wonder why an enclosure is a good idea....


The main project, a robot that can pick up and launch volleyballs, is coming along well.  But I'm going to tease that a bit....

Various experiments with metal fasteners is ongoing.  The power rivet gun is of course their favorite tool.


And software has been programming some mini robots.  Here they are running races through a little maze the kids designed and built.


All good stuff.  But tiring.  Fifteen middle school kids with power tools.  It's a lot.



Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Deer Hunt 2025 - First Report

I got out hunting a few times earlier this week.  A spell of ridiculously hot weather finally broke, with the usual cold rains.  So my first session was cold and unproductive.  Next morning I did a walk through of an area that I've hunted before.  Great bounding herds of fat and happy deer!  Of course when I spent some time there the next sunrise there was....nothing.

This season I'm hunting multiple spots in two different areas.  Here's some views of pretty, but unproductive landscapes....

A ground blind.  Yesterday six deer had gone prancing right past this spot.


The view from one of our enclosed box stands.  Nice and dry.  Good enough light to read a ponderous historical novel....


And just for variety the view from a high up tree stand.  More woods to survey, but still no deer.  Although to be fair I did have a little excitement when a juvenile black bear went running through at a clip that suggested Goldilocks was eating his porridge. 

Weather and other obligations make the next expedition tbd.

Oh, one more thing.  As the modern age now reaches into the back woods I have to turn off all sound on my phone.  Wouldn't want to get a spam call when a big buck was just strolling into range.  When I got back from the woods I decided, hey, lets just leave it on silent mode.  I don't need to pay that much attention to the distractions of modern technology.

Monday, October 6, 2025

The Remarkable Doctor Dutch


Every once in a while you run across a story so strange it is impossible to summarize it.  You just have to read it through.... 


If you want the "short form" version it is as follows.

An unusual man turned up in Chippewa Falls in the pre-Civil War era.  If it indeed was in the "early '50's" there would have been only a few hundred people in town, divided between Chippewa Falls proper and the rather improper adjacent community known as Frenchtown.

Who he really was is unknown and presumably unknowable.  If you are trying to escape your past you really couldn't do much better than to turn up in a pioneering lumber town and insist that your name was Danelia Mahomet Le Duche.

The writer of this piece was Thomas McBean, a fairly keen observer of the local scene.  In general I have found his accounts of the early days - this one by the way was published in the local paper in 1897 - to be reliable.

McBean was pretty sure the guy was English and that he had served in the British Army.  His fluency with languages suggests an educated man.  

Whether he was indeed a physician and whether his interest in matters relating to India was more than a bit of harmless nonsense is hard to say.

Thomas McBean comes across as a bit harsh with respect to the state of the medical profession in the 1890s.  I guess you have to know that his father was the first physician in town, arriving in 1856.  So there were likely some strong opinions in the McBean family regards the laxity of medical licensing in that era.

Dr. Dutch apparently was many things.  A drunk.  A story teller.  A gentleman who would tip his hat to the most humble woman of the community.  And a person it would have been well worth knowing.


Friday, October 3, 2025

Vindolanda Wraps for the Season - And, What Was Going on in The Dark Ages?

The excavations at both of the sites run by the Vindolanda Trust have now wrapped it up for the year.  Some really good work done at each of them.

There is a natural tendency to be very invested in the areas you've personally gotten down and dirty in.  And in my case that enigmatic Dark Age structure that was slopped on top of the nice, neat right angled cornered Roman features.  I've talked at length about it HERE

An end of season drone shot shows it in a bit more detail.  I've put solid lines around the obvious parts and dashed lines where things are "maybe" extending further back.  Weird...


I generally don't like to speculate too much on these things.  I was only there for a single session, and have not had a chance to study the skimpy collection of artifacts that came out of this layer.  But I can probably say one or two things it is not.  Not Roman for instance.  It's running right over late Roman structures, and besides, they would not build things in that shape.  Or partly blocking the main road for that matter.  From the outline you could speculate on it being a livestock pen, but the sheer volume of rocks in this heap make that implausible.  Too much effort for penning up critters in a big, tall, sturdy enclosure.  Besides, the fort walls were likely standing tall at this time so cattle thievery was probably not the major industry it became later.

Ah well, if I'm lucky enough to be back next year in May that will be about the time this area is finished off, so maybe I'll find out.   

Here is the end of season Vindolanda video.



And I don't want to shortchange the Magna excavation which also finished up recently.  A good season with much uncovered.


Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Woodsy Wednesday

This is about the time I started bow hunting last season.  But I've not been out yet.  It has been unseasonably warm and I've been unreasonably busy.  But we have the trail cams out, and have been watching the deer.  Perhaps they've decided to watch us too......


Hope to have a more detailed report next "Woodsy Wednesday".

Monday, September 29, 2025

Vademecum

Sometimes the Great Clean Up project has unexpected results.  As the family member best able to judge such things I was charged with dealing with my dad's library of medical books.  Yes, you remember books.  I'll have more on this in a bit, but basically only a handful were worth preserving.  Mostly well illustrated older texts and a few I kept because a small mystery is involved.

And there there are things like this:      

                                                                                                       

This one gave my memory a good old nudge.  Because I remember a concoction called "Vademecum".  I was a bit fuzzy on details, I just knew it came in a tube and was pink.  My brother recalled that it was a European tooth paste.  Hey, its still sold today albeit not by the company that started marketing it in Sweden in the late 1890's.


So what's the connection?  Vade Mecum is a Latin phrase that translates to "Go with me".  It has long been used for portable hand books, often of a medical nature.  The sort of thing that would contain tips to diagnoses and lots of make 'em yourself remedies for same.  The first such use is said to be from circa 1629.  And as modern medicine advanced and this sort of reference became less important, this early 20th century example would have been near the end of the long and distinguished line.  I assume the tooth paste was a marketing concept based on the notion that there were all sorts of great formulas to be found in the Vade Mecum.

A bit more on the etymology of Vade-Mecum, including its link to "vamoose" and "wade", with a tarty chambermaid thrown in for good measure.

Friday, September 26, 2025

Portraits

Me, about age 3.  I had a sort of impish charm back then.


Me, age 25.  Good lookin' if in part by association.....


Me, a year or two back.  In case you can't tell I'm the one on the right.  Hey, what happened?






Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Fall Smorgasbord

Adhering mostly to my three times a week schedule; it seems likely that for a stretch we'll have one each of Robots, Hunting and The Great Clean Up/Clear Out.  Of course the number of people out there who find all three interesting is perhaps low, but fwiw this is my Life these days.  So lets have a quick sampler.

Robots:

Here's what the middle school crew is going to build.  It is designed to pick up and launch a volleyball.  There are suspicions that the FIRST game for the high school team might have that sort of game element, so its a chance to try stuff out.  If you can make something work with a short time frame and a labor force of squirrels, you've accomplished much.


I have not been out hunting yet.  Too busy and its been warm.  Best to wait, there will be more leaves down in a week or so, and the cooler weather makes the logistics of getting the deer processed much easier.  But from our trail cams, it appears somebody in our area is impatient.....

Probably should have taken a bit more time lining up that shot.  Bucky does not seem too bothered by this, so it may be "only a flesh wound".


Much could be said about digging through the Junk of Generations at my parents house.  Maybe this will suffice for today.



Monday, September 22, 2025

Rescuing the damn Donkeys

In the Great Clean Up there are moments of whimsey and of despair.  Sometimes they coincide.  Digging through strata of long irrelevant junk paper I came across this:


By this point my routine of shuffle, glance, identify, sort had become quite efficient.  But what the heck was this???

Well you have to know that sadly for the last decade or so that my mom lived at home she was bombarded by scammers.  The phone rang every hour (and it still does occasionally), the mailbox was full of appeals.  When one loosely uses the term "a ton" its usually hyperbole.  But I'm sure she got five pounds of mail every day, virtually all of it useless and a large percentage of it scamsters.  That's a ton every 18 months or so.  What she was getting on the internet before she lost the ability to use it, I don't want to know.

Finds of this nature are becoming less common in "the stacks".  Its one area we've been able to take stuff out wholesale.  But they keep coming.  Whoever occupies this house next will get them for another decade at least.

My brother and I have a bit of dark humor regards this stuff.  She got appeals from every end and each fringe of the political spectrum.  "At least they've found something to agree on".  There were certain themes.  Animal rescue.  Famine relief.  Political prisoners in faraway lands.  After a bit they started mixing and matching.  We expected to see appeals to "Free the starving Ethiopian donkeys".

This is in that vein.

It's a deck of playing cards from a place that is a Donkey Rescue ranch.  Why cards?  Well, lots of these outfits will send you some small trinket.  Mailing labels.  Stickers.  Sometimes a nickel or a dime glued to their appeal.  Playing cards were a new one to me.  Maybe they figure their core mark demographic sits around playing solitaire.

Anyway, sans future comment, here's a few pics.  I was mildly curious about the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue folks.  They seem to own a very large tract of land out west.  Where they get the donkeys in need of rescue was not clear.  If you also get curious and look 'em up, don't send them any money.  





Friday, September 19, 2025

Robot School 6.0

Ah, Robot School.  I claim credit here, as it was pretty much my invention.  I'd been working with middle school students for years doing basic DIY robot stuff.  When the high school FIRST Robotics team started up we had no "farm system".  Alumni of the earlier after school programs turned up, but as the complexity increased we needed more students, and students who knew more.

In the summer of 2019 I just invited a batch of kids to come do a bit of summer work with the high school team.  They'd just finished 6th, 7th, or 8th grade.  My fellow coaches thought I was crazy.  Hey, fair point, I think that myself at times.

The name?  Well, my first grandson was pretty young at the time and thought that what we were doing with robots was pretty cool.  He coined the phrase Robot School and somehow it stuck.

In general about half the middle school kids we work with go on to the high school team.  Of that initial group we had a future team captain, a couple of valedictorians, a national merit scholar and a girl who won Dean's List, the highest award in FIRST Robotics.

That was Robot School 1.0.  Covid of course imploded the entire edifice of public education, so it was not until summer of 2021 that we ran RS-2.  This was an official summer school offering.  Another outstanding group, the core of a team that came inches from going to Worlds two years later.

2022 was an off year.  We moved our build space to the more accommodating environs of the middle school tech ed area.  That allowed us to run after school versions of Robot School in fall of 2023 and 2024.  Smaller groups, and perhaps reflecting the post Covid learning crater, fewer kids stepping up with the ability and industry to do technology way beyond high school levels.

For 2025 we decided, what the heck.  I've reported on our successful summer build (Robot School 5.0) and now we are back with the biggest group to date.  15 students.  And 9 instructors ranging from ancient geezers, me, to members of the high school team.  The middle school kids learn a lot more from them.  And from each other.

A few photos from the swirling chaos of adolescents with power tools....







OK, that last one was of me just prior to delivering the eulogy for Ketchup, the robot they were about to dismantle for parts.  When hats were doffed I spoke the traditional words for such occasions:

"Bolts to bolts.  Widgets to widgets.  From parts it came and to parts it shall return.  Amen."

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Indian Guides

A major house clean up/clean out has different categories of difficulty.  The hideous decades old pickles....very carefully dispose of them.  But other things take thought, moments of reflection.  Old clothes for instance.  They are part of our memories of the people who wore them, the places they wore them.......

Two views of an unusual garment, adult size.


This goes back to the 1960's.  Both my older brother and I remember being involved in a Father-Son thing called "Indian Guides".  It was run by the YMCA.  Dads and sons, later daughters were also brought in, got together in small groups and did stuff.  I have vague memories of craft projects.  There was a patina of Native American culture, talk about The Great Spirit and so forth.  I have a distinct impression that it was something our dad did to try and connect with us a bit.  I can sympathize, being a father of boys myself.  And it must have been harder with four sons, one with special needs, and a work ethic that went way beyond reasonable.  I've mentioned before that it was not until I went away to college that I found out that not everyone eats dinner at 8pm!  Heck, nowadays that's not far from bed time!  
But what really was Indian Guides?

It was as I said, a group associated with the YMCA.  It was established back in 1926 by two friends, one of whom actually was Native.  It's heyday was in the 1960's, which corresponds with our involvement.  From various photos I've seen the "attire" varied.  Lots of head bands and feathers.  Some vests, and it looks like they were more common for the dads than the sons.

If you think this sounds a bit out of step with modern sensibilities, you'd be correct.  A more detailed history of the organization and the cultural appropriation aspects of it can be found HERE.

I think our involvement with Indian Guides was fairly short.  Pretty soon my brother and I were in Cub Scouts.  My dad didn't get involved in that.  My mom was a Den Mother, but oddly my brother and I were in different "Dens" and I was not in hers.

---------------------------------------

Addendum.  More stuff moved, more things found.  A shirt and pants, clearly made on a home sewing machine, that look like Indian Guide garb.  Did my parents ever throw anything away?



Above are the shirt alone and alongside the vest.  There are no logos or stitch marks indicating that there ever were any.  Our family name is hand stitched in the collar.

There's a mystery here.  Whose outfit was this?  As you can see from the vest, my dad had a generous waistline.  The shirt is long, but probably designed to hang down almost to the knees.  But the pants, not shown here, are of a length such that I could almost wear them today!  Not of a waistline that would allow it, but still pretty generous.

I figured my brother and I were maybe 7 or 8 when we were in Guides.  Were one or both of us really that tall?  Was my mom really that bad at making clothes?


Monday, September 15, 2025

One to One Thousand Ratio Confirmed

You'll have to tolerate a series of observations spinning off of the great clean up/clean out of my parent's house.   There's so much that could be said.  But sometimes the old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words.......


Our possessions are almost entirely just "stuff".  If you don't maintain control of them they will in time be in control of you.


Friday, September 12, 2025

Jump Scare

Well, a couple of days of hard work on the house clean up project.  It's what my Scottish friends would refer to as "a fair bit o' graft".  

After a while you become cautious.  You haul things out into the light before exploring too closely.  Hmmm, this seems OK.


Wait a minute.  What's that little pile of stuff????


Sawdust and mouse droppings.  So lets open that drawer very carefully............


We're in the clear this time, but there were some unexpected scares earlier, when indignant mice jumped out of things we were trying to move.  Exciting.  Especially as we'd had a couple of beers and watched an episode of "Alien Earth" the night before.  Really puts you on edge regards things jumping unexpectedly.

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Army Medicine on the Eve of D-Day

In the Great House Clean Up the ratio of Trash to Treasure runs strongly to the former.  By about 1000:1.  But a few family treasures are being wrested from the attentions of the Mice.  And some things that just deserve a few minutes of thought.

My dad did an accelerated college-Med School program during WWII.  He graduated from the latter just after the war ended.  So this item would have been part of his reading material about half way through Medical School.


This is the June 1944 edition of THE BULLETIN of the U.S. Army Medical Department.  So, what was actually on their collective minds as the troops were heading onto Omaha Beach?

Well, its 119 pages long.

The first page covers this new fangled stuff called Penicillin, and various articles on this first of the real antibiotics total 14 pages including a delightful account by Dr. Fleming on its semi-accidental discovery.

But that takes a back seat to the various things that could go wrong with any army's most important bit of equipment, the feet of their soldiers!  Combing the totals for Trench Foot, fungal infections, injuries from obstacle courses and such, these add up to 30 pages, about a quarter of the publication.

Actual combat related material does appear, as US troops had been in action in the Pacific and North Africa.  But I got the sense that academic discussion of how to best debride and clean up wounds was a bit perfunctory.  Seems like one of those things you just have to do in real life to learn.

There are lots of little oddities to be found.  Three pages, with lots of illustrations, on how to construct a latrine system in an area where you can't dig pits.  A page on sting ray injuries.  And, given that this publication was created by merging Army medical, dental and veterinary publications, two pages devoted to "CORONARY OCCLUSION IN A RACE HORSE".

And how about ten pages on how to fumigate barracks with highly toxic cyanide gases?!

All pretty interesting stuff, but sometimes it just raises more questions.  For instance:


This was obviously another high priority subject for military medicine, but I always thought the concern was mostly that our boys in uniform - or actually out of same - would consort with  bimbos and perhaps the occasional Mata Hari type.  Indeed, one of my dad's few anecdotes on his military career involved doing what was called "short arm inspections" on the troop ship coming back from Europe!

That the Women's Army Corps were in need of similar moral education came as a surprise.  Were the Army docs worried about the gals consorting with himbos and Mata Harrys???