June 21, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



601 



government, have very wisely taken steps 

 to prevent the disruption of our medical 

 schools, and I am glad to say that our na- 

 tional government adopted the suggestion 

 made by the Surgeon-General to allow med- 

 ical students to be commissioned in the en- 

 listed ^Medical Resen'e Corps and have 

 them detailed to complete their medical 

 education and to serve a year in a hospital 

 as interns before they are called into active 

 service. This was to apply to the men who 

 have already studied medicine in the med- 

 ical school proper for one year. In order 

 to insure the further supply of medical stu- 

 dents to meet the demands of a great and 

 prolonged war, the effort is being made to 

 have this apply also to the men who are 

 taking their premedical work in universities. 

 It is necessary to have these men continue 

 their medical studies in order to insure the 

 continued supply and the necessary num- 

 ber of medical men. 



The United States is the only great reser- 

 voir of medical men in the world. The 

 medical professions of Great Britain and 

 France, of Italy and Belgium, and this is 

 probably more true of enemy countries, 

 have been well nigh exhausted by this war. 

 They delayed making plans for a continued 

 supply, their medical schools became dis- 

 rupted, and they are already suffering for 

 medical men in their armies and in their 

 civil life. Major Horace B. Arnold, chair- 

 man of the council on medical education, 

 who is on active duty in the Surgeon-Gen- 

 eral's Office looking after the problem on 

 medical education for General Gorgas, has 

 this matter now under consideration, and it 

 is to be hoped that he will succeed in se- 

 curing rulings that will enable our premed- 

 ical students to continue their medical 

 courses. If the need for medical men be- 

 comes very great we can adopt a continuous 

 session and graduate men in three years. 

 The senior students in the medical schools 



should have special courses in military sur- 

 gery. I would recommend that if possible 

 one or two competent medical officers be 

 assigned to each medical school for this 

 purpose. 



EXP.VNSION OP THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT 



The enormous problem that was pre- 

 sented to the Surgeon-General's Office by 

 the war may be realized in a striking way 

 by the statement that the development of 

 an adequate medical department of- 3,000, 

 000, men means that less than 2 per cent, of 

 such a department is represented by the men 

 in the sen-ice at the time of the outbreak of 

 the war — that more than 98 per cent, of the 

 men must be taken from civil life, and must 

 be given the necessary military training to 

 fit them for active duty in the field. This 

 enormous problem is being adequately and 

 splendidly met. A small medical depart- 

 ment which existed before the war has 

 formed the leaven necessary to change a 

 great body of physicians coming from civil 

 life into efficient military surgeons and effi- 

 cient hospital and ambulance units. Spe- 

 cial training camps for medical men were 

 formed at Port Riley, Port Benjamin Har- 

 rison and Port Oglethorpe. Gradually the 

 work done by these different camps is being 

 concentrated at Port Oglethorpe, where an 

 enormous military medical university of 40,- 

 000 officers and men is being created. Here 

 the enlisted men wiU receive their neces- 

 sary training in small and large units, and 

 the medical officers will receive their neces- 

 sary military instruction and instruction in 

 such medical work as ^vill peculiarly fit 

 them for their military duties. 



GENERAL GORGAS 



Standing out prominently in the develop- 

 ment of the great Medical Department of 

 the Army is a great figure, the figure of 

 Surgeon-General Gorgas, who in a very 

 quiet way has demonstrated again the fact 



