Medicine: Priority Under The Bomb

How can the Army best care for troops wounded in a nuclear attack? In the ivy-covered Army Institute of Research at Washington's Walter Reed Medical Center, the grim subject came up for review last week at a conference on the "Management of Mass Casualties." Present: Army medical officers, representatives of federal and private health agencies. The conference consensus: nuclear warfare calls for a new definition of the old concept of battlefield treatment.

The Army's new approach, as described by Lieut. Colonel Joseph D. Goldstein, sets up a priority system that automatically gives preference...