"En Cos d'Accident..."

A stocky Detroit businessman, middle-aged and raring for a night on the town, dropped his room key at the desk of the Hotel Continental in Paris' Rue de Castiglione. In his mailbox, as in those of hundreds of other Americans in Paris last week, was a letter. "The enclosed wallet-size 'protection card,' " it said, "comes to you with the compliments of the American Hospital of Paris, which for nearly half a century has been a feature of American life in this city . . . The hospital is yours."

The Detroiter blinked at the big red lettering on the card: EN CAS D'ACCIDENT. After a blank for his name & address: Citoyen americain, je desire etre transporte d'urgence `a I'hopital americain de Paris. The visitor filled in his name and hotel address, tucked the card into his wallet, and stepped briskly out into the warm, exciting Paris night to take his chances with wine, women and the world's wildest motorists. The Detroiter, and thousands like him, felt a bit more secure just for having the card.

After the Opera. A fair number of Americans in Paris eventually turn up at the hospital. Schoolteacher Anne Louise McMahon of Lewisburg, W. Va. was crossing the Boulevard des Capucines one night last month, after attending the opera, when a motorcyclist roared down the street and hit her; she suffered a broken left leg. "Right away," she says, "I thought of my little card." Her friends fished it out of her pocketbook and handed it to the gendarme who sent her, d'urgence, to the American Hospital. Card or no, the police probably would have sent her there anyway, but it made Miss McMahon feel better to have some say in the matter.

Now Schoolmistress McMahon's leg is mending well, though she is still not sure how soon she can go home. She is delighted with the hospital and the treatment she has had; speaking no French, she has found it a comfort to be cared for by English-speaking doctors and nurses. (The doctors include three Americans, five Britons and a Canadian; the 100 nurses are of nine nationalities.)

Surprisingly few U.S. visitors are taken to the hospital because of traffic accidents. Most are so shaken by their first sight of Paris traffic that they are extra careful in crossing streets. The commonest ailment treated at the hospital is "Paris tummy" --a catchall label for the painful bellyaches that result from too much French food and wine. Next in frequency are heart attacks, suffered by elderly businessmen pursuing delusions of youth in Montmartre. A few scared youngsters and sheepish oldsters drop in at the outpatient department after a possible exposure to venereal disease.

The Water's Fine. U.S. tourists are always calling the hospital to ask whether Paris water is safe to drink. (It is.) Also whether it is safe to eat such French dishes as frogs' legs, snails and mussels. (Usually, it is.)

Currently, a Texan holds the record for fortitude. Tall and tough, he was in great pain from a broken arm when he walked into the red brick hospital building in suburban Neuilly. The doctor saw that it was not a fresh break, asked why he had not come in sooner. "Oh," said the Texan, "I figured it would knit by itself and wasn't important enough to bother the hospital about."

Last week the hospital, founded in 1910, closed a fund drive among U.S. tourists and the permanent American community. Wrote one heart case: "I'm writing flat on my back in one of your most agreeable rooms." He enclosed a check for $500. To eke out its income from fees (higher than French, but lower than U.S. rates) and buy expensive U.S. equipment and drugs, the hospital had taken in $126,000.

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