Again after liberation, when the diet returned to normal and remained adequate, many hundreds of refeeding gynecomastia were seen, and lasted from one to eight months, before disappearing. At times the enlarged breasts were rather tender and even painful.
Dysentery Section of Hospital: Fenced off from the hospital was a quarantined area containing about ten wards-called the Dysentery Section-under the supervision of a separate staff of medical officers and corpsmen.
There was a tremendous sanitary problem. Many of the patients were too weak to leave their wards. Some "passed out" on their way to and from the latrine. There was essentially no medicine for these debilitated patients-unless they were lucky enough to
have a friend in Manila and knew how to contact him via the Underground.
Zero Ward: In the Dysentery Section, there was a building that was missed when the wards were numbered. Later, it was called "Zero Ward" and served as a place to put the seriously ill, essentially dying patients. It was an empty building with wooden floors, and usually contained about thirty extremely ill patients naked lying on the floor, frequently in their own vomitus and dysenteric stool.
Their chances of survival were just about zero. Flies walked casually over their leathery skin; rarely did a patient arouse himself sufficiently to threaten a fly. Most of the patients did not want to be disturbed, typically responding "Please leave me alone; I have suffered enough! Just go away!"
Exhausted and sick corpsmen moved slowly among the dying, trying to keep them clean, and giving them food or medicine, when available.
Operating Room: In the early days of the hospital, the Japanese permitted several medical officers to return to Bataan to retrieve an operating table, minimal surgical equipment and a field X-ray unit from the abandoned U.s. Army hospital.
Captives who had needed operations prior to the obtaining of the surgical equipment were operated in Cabanatuan city by Japanese doctors with 100% mortality.
Our American surgeons said, "We can do better than that!" The
American surgeons had no mortality.