Medicine: Floating Hospital

Dressed in mothballs, the 11,141-ton Navy hospital ship Consolation now rides quietly at a San Francisco pier. But next fall she is scheduled to cast off and establish an imaginative medical precedent: a tour of Southeast Asia as a floating U.S. hospital and medical school.

The project, announced last week, is the joint venture of the U.S. Government, big business and private philanthropy. The Navy will donate the Consolation,* American President Lines will operate her at cost, and the People-to-People Health Foundation will raise the cash (estimated annual bill: $3,500,000), sign on a permanent...

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