278 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE 



priate, since large numbers of them were attached to mobile 

 military formations, companies, battalions and regiments, and 

 they had no hospital duties whatever while so serving; further 

 it was a corps without officers which was an anomalous con- 

 dition and for these and other reasons the name was changed 

 to the enlisted force of the Medical Department ; the latter also 

 comprised the Dental, Veterinary and Nurse Corps, and after 

 the outbreak of the war, and the passage of the National De- 

 fense Act, the Sanitary Corps, the U. S. Army Ambulance 

 Service and a large number of Contract Surgeons and civil 

 employees. 



These elements of the Medical Department and their strength 

 at different periods is shown in the following table: 



In 1918, there were, in the whole United States, 147,812 

 physicians, and among these there was a considerable number 

 who were not in active practice of their profession. The larg- 

 est number on active duty with the army on any one date was 

 30,591, on the I5th of November, 1918. There were many 

 losses among the medical officers ; for example, in some weeks 

 the losses exceeded the gains, so the total number of physicians 

 who were at one time or another in active service was much 

 greater than the number just given. The exact figures can- 

 not now be stated, but it was in the neighborhood of 40,000, and 

 this last number represents, perhaps, about one third of the 

 physicians in active practice in the United States. 



It has been estimated by military authorities in the past that 

 it would require seven physicians per thousand of army 

 strength for service directly with troops and approximately 

 three per thousand in addition for work at home with recruit- 

 ing, with convalescents and chronic cases. Since we had ap- 

 proximately four million men at one time or another and about 

 40,000 physicians in all, the result, 10 per thousand, corresponds 

 very closely with the estimate. The greatest number in the 

 army at any one time was 3,634,000 on the first of November, 

 1918, and at about that time we had 30,591 medical officers, 

 which again is very close to the estimate. 



