THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE AVIATOR 113 



tfiat you will feel as I do, when I tell you that they were 

 threatened with punishment for insubordination when 

 they refused to recognize that a regulation of the army, 

 which prescribes the duration of nystagmus after the ro- 

 tation test, necessarily makes this a physiological fact. 



I would gladly devote a few minutes also to pointing 

 out some of the lessons to be drawn from the rather un- 

 usually good opportunities which fell to my lot to observe 

 the mingling of science and militarism. The chief lesson 

 can be put in a single phrase : They do not mix. The War 

 Gas Investigations, which formed the nucleus on which 

 the Chemical Warfare Service finally developed, and 

 the Medical Aviation Investigations, of which I have 

 spoken this evening, were both successful largely be- 

 cause at first they were developed under civilian control, 

 under that splendid scientific arm of the government, the 

 Bureau of Mines and its able director. It is a wise pro- 

 vision of our government by which the Secretary and 

 Assistant Secretaries of War are always civilians. It 

 would also be wise for the general staff in any future war 

 to keep scientific men on a scientific status instead of 

 practically forcing them into uniform. 



We all hope that we are done with war, and with sol- 

 diers at least for a generation. We can, however, derive 

 certain broad lessons applicable to the conditions of peace 

 from the experiences and intense activities of war, when 

 almost unlimited funds were obtainable for research and 

 the experiences ordinarily scattered over years were 

 crowded into a few months. One of these lessons is that 

 scientific men need to develop the capacity to become the 

 heads of large enterprises without ceasing to be scientific, 

 without degenerating, as is too often the case, into the 

 super-clerk, who seems to be the American ideal of the 

 high executive official. It is not enough for the scientific 

 man to become the expert adviser to the unscientific ad- 

 ministrator. If the latter has the responsibility he will 

 use his power as he, and not as the scientific man, sees 



