of urine was obtained in the presence of the physician, and a university professor 

 of chemistry made the examination at once, the result being known before the 

 man was dressed. The fifth physician was stationed in a small room fitted with 

 Snellen's test cards, and there examined the eyes and the ears. The physical 

 examination blank was passed from physician to physician, each making a record 

 of his findings. 



It is explained by Dr. Hurd that if during the course of the exami- 

 nation any physician detected a condition which he considered sufficient 

 to disqualify the registrant, he consulted the sixth physician, who was on 

 duty for re-examination. These two failing to agree, they appealed to the 

 board physician: the verdict of the three was final. It is stated that 

 under the foregoing arrangement it was possible "in a few hours to 

 examine 175 men with such thoroughness that to date, with 70 per 

 cent, of the quota in camp, not a man has been returned because 

 physically deficient." Before leaving the building, each man was in- 

 formed as to the result of his physical examination and given an 

 opportunity to file a claim for exemption or discharge, the chairman 

 of the Local Board taking charge of this branch of the work. 



EFFECTS OF DISCRETIONARY POWERS ON THE 

 REJECTION RATE 



The actual results under this procedure in 1,800 cases were as 

 follows : The number of rejections for physical reasons was 705, or 

 39.2 per cent, of the total. It is stated by Dr. Hurd that "This seems 

 a staggering proportion of unfitness among men between the ages of 

 21 and 31, a time when physical perfection is most likely to be found; 

 but when we consider that 232 of these were underweight, a condition 

 which may not mean any permanent physical defect, the high rate 

 becomes more readily understandable." He explains, however, that 

 "This figure would have been much higher had not the examining 

 physician departed from the arbitrary dictum of the rules and regula- 

 tions as to relative weight and height." "In cases in which the subject, 

 although underweight, was in all other essentials in good physical 

 condition, he exercised his personal judgment to the effect that camp 

 life would probably improve the weight, and accepted the man. Con- 

 versely, of overweights : none of the latter were rejected unless really 

 obese." With reference to the 232 men underweight, the greatest 

 number were aged 29; the smallest 27. It is therefore evident that 

 the group under review was not sufficiently large for entirely safe con- 

 clusions. Out of 477 native-born registrants, 151, or 31.7 per cent., 

 were underweight; out of 149 Russians, 66, or 44.3 per cent., were 

 underweight. Since the army standard is the same for all races, in 

 disregard of the fact of decided anthropometric variations, conclusions 

 based upon these percentages are certain to be misleading. 



Other causes of rejection were: flatfoot, 22; varicocele, 15; bad 

 teeth, 20; tuberculosis, 4; bad eyes, 30; deformities, including hammer- 

 toe, etc., 36; varicose veins, etc., 8; obesity, 22; albuminuria, 11; bad 



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