324 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



daring of the more exceptional of his fellows he has received more for less 

 work than the average man ever received before. During normal times of 

 peace he has been better housed, better clothed, and better fed (quantita- 

 tively) than ever before. Moreover, he had been told by the popular philoso- 

 phers of the nineteenth century that his evolution was a triumphal, one- 

 way procession ever onward and upward toward perfection. This earlier 

 optimism may have been somewhat dampened by periodic economic crises 

 and two world wars, but now to be told that human evolution is a reversible 

 process and that, as an organism, he may be deteriorating instead of im- 

 proving — well, it comes as a shock! 



Dr. Thomas Parran, Jr., surgeon general of the United States Public 

 Health Service, reported a few years ago that one of every 20 gainfully 

 employed persons in this country is prevented by illness from attending 

 to his customary duties each day of the year, and every man, woman, and 

 child, on the average, is incapacitated by illness 10 days of each year. The 

 oldsters average 35 days sick in bed each year. 



A two-year study of the nation's health by a United States Senate Sub- 

 committee on Wartime Health and Education has revealed that of more 

 than 14 million men examined for the draft, only two million were up to 

 standard. About one of every six citizens of the United States, the subcom- 

 mittee reported has a chronic disease or physical impairment.^ A later re- 

 port states that approximately 12 per cent, of all those examined by the 

 armed services were found mentally unfit for military duty.^ 



As to the incidence of the chronic, constitutional type of disease, an 

 analysis by the Selective Service System of reports of physical examina- 

 tion of registrants for military service from 21 selected states is deeply 

 revealing. During the period November, 1940, through September, 1941, 

 approximately 3 million registrants in these states were examined at the 

 local boards. These registrants were, of course, between the age limits 

 within which men presumably are at the physical prime of their lives. And 

 yet, the combined rejection rate at the local boards and the induction sta- 

 tions was 52.8 per cent. The following paragraph from the report sets forth 

 the incidence of defects causing rejection: 



Tooth defects were the leading cause of rejection, accounting for 16.5 per 

 cent, of all rejections at local boards and induction stations. Other causes of 

 rejection, and the percentages they constitute of all rejections, are: eye defects, 

 1 1.7 per cent; mental and nervous defects, 10.4 per cent; cardiovascular defects, 

 1 0.0 per cent; musculoskeletal defects, 8.9 per cent; hernia, 5.9 per cent; venereal 

 diseases, 5.9 per cent; ear, nose and throat defects, 5.5 per cent; tuberculosis and 

 other lung diseases, 3.8 per cent; educational deficiency, 3.8 per cent; defects of 

 the feet, 3.0 per cent; underweight, 2.9 per cent; other causes, 11.7 per cent.* 



2 Time Magazine, January 15, 1945. 



^ Ibid., October 15, 1945. 



* Causes of Rejection and Incidence of Defects, Local Board Examinations of Selec- 

 tive Service Registrants in Peacetime, Medical Statistics Bulletin No, 2, Selective Service 

 System, August i, 1943, P- '• 



