Newton D. Baker to Woodrow Wilson

Mrs. Cecil Barret wrote you some time ago with regard to Dr. Armitage Whitman, suggesting that, by reason of his expertness in the treatment of infantile paralysis, he should be relieved from service in connection with the Army Medical Corps. I at once took the matter up with the Surgeon General who advises me that both Mrs. Barret and her husband had written directly to him upon the subject and that he thereupon took up with Dr. Whitman himself the question of his release from the Medical Corps. Dr. Whitman, however, replied that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Barret were authorized to speak for him in the matter and that he declined to accept a release, preferring to serve in the Army.General Gorgas says that the treatment of infantile paralysis is now so well understood and so succcessfully carried out by physicians generally that it can hardly be regarded as a specialty within the pecular competence of any individual practitioners.
There would seem, therefore, to be no way in which the suggestion made by Mrs. Barret can be carried out.