KING GEORGE SENDS MESSAGE OF GRATITUDE TO HARVARD

King George has sent to the University a personal communication praising the work of the Harvard Hospital Unit which served with the British Army throughout the war, and expressing the lively gratitude of the British Army and the British Nation for what was done by the physicians and nurses of the Unit.

The communication was relayed to Cambridge by the British Embassy and the State Department. It reads as follows:

"The King desires to express his warm appreciation of the invaluable services rendered to the British Army by the Harvard University Hospital Unit, whose work for the sick and wounded, from the arrival of the earliest contingent of Medical Officers and Nursing Sisters before the first year of the war was ended, until the conclusion of hostilities, was marked by the highest devotion and by the perfection of medical and nursing skill. Their record can never be forgotten, or remembered without lively gratitude, by the British Army and the British Nation. GEORGE R. I."

Unit Organized in 1915.

The Harvard Unit was organized in the spring of 1915, and in June of that year 32 surgeons and physicians, three dentists, and 75 nurses, in charge of Dr. Edward H. Nichols '86, sailed for England. The Unit was assigned to General Hospital 22, British Expeditionary Forces, and remained in service, except for a break of three weeks in 1915, until the conclusion of hostilities. After several physicians had each had a term of service in charge of the Unit, Dr. Hugh Cabot '94 took permanent charge, was made Commanding Officer of the Hospital by the British Army, and was commissioned a Lieutenant-Colonel.

1200 Patients in 24 Hours.

During its three and a half years of service the Hospital took care of over 150,000 casualties. This is greater than the total reported wounded of the American Expeditionary Forces. At one time during the German offensive of March, 1918. Colonel Cabot and his associates took in over 1200 patients in 24 hours, and had 3000 in the Hospital at that time.

King George in person decorated several members of the Unit last winter, and A. J. Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, in a letter to President Lowed about the work of the members of the Unit, said:

"They have added lustre even to the fame of Harvard. The memory of so much service and self-sacrifice can never pass from us. It will be cherished in perpetuity by the relations and friends of those whom the Harvard Unit has tended with such admirable devotion.