acceptance or rejection are based upon the number of conscripts at large 

 or only those examined subsequently to a preliminary process of elimi- 

 nation. The most comprehensive treatise on the subject of recruiting sta- 

 tistics is the fifth volume of the Handbook of Military Hygiene by 

 Bischoff, Hoffman and Schwiening, published in Berlin, 1913. Of much 

 additional value is the article on Military Efficiency by Claassen in the 

 Handbook of Social Hygiene, by Grotjahn-Kaup, published in Leipzig, 

 1912. The references to foreign statistics in handbooks on military and 

 naval hygiene by American and English authors are exceedingly frag- 

 mentary and practically useless for trustworthy comparative scientific 

 purposes. The whole question of normal physical growth and normal 

 bodily proportions with a due regard to race, sex and age has been re- 

 ported upon to best advantage for practical purposes by Dr. S. Weissen- 

 berg, Stuttgart, 1911. The conclusions arrived at by means of strictly 

 scientific investigations are much more generally applied in the selec- 

 tion of recruits in foreign countries than in the United States or 

 England, at least previously to the adoption of universal conscription. 

 As observed in a recent contribution to the Scientific American (June 

 9, 1917) : "There is an increased interest everywhere in physical 

 measurements and the means of improving them when they are below 

 par." But it is properly pointed out that "there is another factor besides 

 height, weight, and girth of trunk or limbs, which is highly important 

 in determining the military value of a soldier in the field, namely, 

 endurance, or staying power." 



INDEX OF VITAL RESISTANCE 



The correct ascertainment of the degree of disease resistance on the 

 one hand and of the resistance to physical and physiological fatigue on 

 the other are as yet a subject unfortunately merely in a preliminary 

 stage of qualified investigation. The scientific research work of A. F. 

 Stanley Kent on Industrial Fatigue by physiological methods indicates a 

 direction which can be followed to much practical advantage in the 

 more rational development of training methods for new recruits and of 

 endurance tests for mature men with sufficient military experience to 

 make such tests relatively non-hazardous to health and life. As 

 observed in an article in the Scientific American on Human Measure- 

 ments and "Resistance Formulas," "The various corporal measure- 

 ments commonly made, such as height, weight, circumference of normal 

 and of expanded chest, respiratory amplitude, dynamometric force, 

 girth of arms, legs, hips, etc., taken alone represent merely separate 

 elements of strength and development." Among the various formulae 

 for combining these factors and ascertaining a mathematical in- 

 dex of comparative robustness the one most generally employed and 

 likely to yield the best results is said to be the one by Pignet, which is 

 briefly stated as follows : 



47 



