Nt1310 Unit 1

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1. The United States Congress authorized the establishment of a Medical service on 27 July 1775. The establishment of this Medical Service enabled the Army to obtain the budget to buy adequate amount of medicine, equipment, and build medical facilities to treat Soldiers. As the enemy and type of casualties keep changing, today, the Medical Service is able to quickly prepare for any war because there is money available to buy any new equipment to prevent and treat soldiers. This move help strengthened the army by allowing it to acquire vaccines, to vaccinate soldiers against diseases like small pox that devastated the army during the Revolutionary war. This establishment enabled the Army to get a Director General and Chief Physician who were …show more content…
Hospital Steward (Medical NCO’S) was first recruited after congress authorized the legislation to hire these aids on 17 July 1776. Some of the Stewards are doctors, while others can read and write and have some education in science and mathematics. Even though Army Hospitals already had stewards, this legislation made it official. They are the predecessors of the AMEDD NCO Corps. In 1777, duties of a hospital steward were to help with “receiving, dispensing, and maintaining accountability of articles of diet from the commissary (history.amedd.army.mil)”, by the end of 1780; their duties had been expanded to administrative and logistical duties in the hospital. At that time, a steward is paid a dollar a day, plus two rations. In 1799 all military hospitals are allowed one steward. By 1813 steward were receiving twenty dollars. In 1847 these Army Stewards were issued uniforms with Half Chevrons as their rank and a Caduceus to identify them. Consequently new chevrons were given to Hospital Stewards in 1887 similar to the ones the rest of the Army NCO’s wear. Furthermore, privates get promoted after a year, and after passing an examination to Hospital Stewards. Not until 2 March 1903 when the Army medical Corps was disestablish, and Hospital Stewards were finally replaced with Sergeant and