284 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE 



made them careless in the enforcement of water discipline. 

 Nevertheless, the total number of cases of diseases of the in- 

 testines, diarrhoea, dysentery and typhoid was smaller than in 

 any other war in history. 



SELECTIVE SERVICE- 



Another considerable medical activity of the war was cen- 

 tered in the Selective Service Boards which were organized 

 by and administered under the direction of the Provost Marshal 

 General. It was expressly stipulated in the Selective Service 

 Law, that the machinery should be civil rather than military, 

 and no officers of the army engaged directly in the selection of' 

 the men who were to make up our forces. A few of the ad- 

 ministrative heads of the service, however, were members of 

 the permanent or temporary military force. This was par- 

 ticularly true of the federal control of the service, which cen- 

 tered in the office of the Provost Marshal, General Crowder, 

 who, in times of peace, is the Judge Advocate General of the 

 Regular Army; some of his assistants belonged to the same 

 body. In each state, the governor, under the law, divided his 

 territory into districts, one for each county, except in cities of 

 over 30,000 population, and these were divided into districts 

 of not over 30,000. This meant the organization of 4557 local 

 boards, each consisting of three men, of whom one was a 

 physician who made the physical examinations, sometimes 

 alone, but often with assistance. Under the first draft the 

 number of men selected by the Local Boards was 527,000. 

 On November 8, 1917, new selective service regulations were 

 promulgated which authorized the regular appointment of as- 

 sistant medical examiners for the Local Boards, and also of a 

 new board, composed entirely of physicians called the Medical 

 Advisory Board, on which all the special fields of medicine 

 were represented by experts. To this Board all doubtful cases 

 were referred by the Local Boards; in all there were 1319 

 such Advisory Boards, distributed through the states so as to 

 be most easily accessible. As a rule they were located at some 



