To this end I wrote and obtained from the Surgeon General of the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, 100 copies of the “Handbook for the Ship’s Medicine Chest,” (Stoner) and am using this book now with excellent results.
I am giving each member of the Harbor a copy, obtaining a receipt for same, and in the lecture follow closely the instruction laid down in the book.
I have placed on the Bulletin Board of the Harbor the subject and date (with pages in book) of the lecture and give them in the afternoon of every other Thursday at 3.30 o’clock. This I find better than in the evenings for the officers and I have from 25 to 35 present each time. This book, as you will note, has an ideal medicine chest outfit and strange to say very few of the officers knew of the book until I gave them a copy.
I am going to give about eight lectures from the book and then have planned to write you for instructions. Dr. Blue has suggested that when candidates for license as masters, etc., be examined for their eye-sight and color blindness, that an examination in First Aid could be given them. This brings up the question as to how far the Red Cross and the various departments should work together and in my mind is the most important question before our organization today.
In talking with Captain Westcott of Harbor No. 15 here he seems to think that his association should make attendance of its members on the lectures obligatory, and at the same time by a change in the By-Laws make each member become a Red Cross member. I think from what I can learn here that it would be carried unanimously, for I have an excellent reception at every one of my lectures.
Therefore, to be concise, my plan is tentatively—
a. Make each member of the National Association of Masters, Mates and Pilots a member of the Red Cross, arranging with the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service for books, we to collect receipts for same and keep the records.
b. Have “First Aid” Committees in each local Branch, who, with a Secretary, should keep in touch with the work, assign physicians to lecture and examine and arrange for examination of candidates and keep record of same.
c. Endeavor to have laws passed which shall make it necessary for each ship to have a properly equipped chest on board and a copy of the authorized book.
d. Arrange with the Secretary of the National Association of Masters, Mates and Pilots to have him publish in his journal the dates and names of lectures, making them uniform in every place, and where the lectures are to be held.