156 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VI. No. 1181 



are some anticlines and domes in eastern South 

 Dakota, but the strata above the granite and 

 quartzite in that area are not thick enough to 

 offer encouraging prospects. 



A prominent anticline in (Jonverse county, 

 Wyo., with its crest east of Old Woman Creek, 

 lifts an extensive series of sedimentary rocks 

 not far southwest of the Black Hills. Another 

 arch occurs on the west slope of these hills a 

 few miles northwest of Moorcroft, and on its 

 sides are oil springs from some underground 

 source. 



MEDICAL STUDENTS AND CONSCRIPTION 



The Journal of the American Medical As- 

 sociation has obtained information regarding 

 the draft numbers and numerical order of call 

 of medical students. There were all told 13,- 

 764 medical students enrolled during the last 

 session, of whom 3,379 graduated, leaving 10,- 

 385, made up of 4,107 freshmen, 3,117 sopho- 

 mores, 2,866 juniors, and 295 seniors who were 

 not graduated. Tabulated statistics regard- 

 ing 5,909 or 56.9 per cent, of all undergraduate 

 medical students based on direct replies to a 

 questionnaire are as follows : 



While the table represents only a little more 

 than 56 per cent, of the whole, it gives those 

 interested an opportunity to estimate the effect 

 of the draft on the different classes. As 

 shown in the table, 5,053, or 85.5 per cent, of 

 the students who have already replied, are sub- 

 ject to the draft, and of these 29 per cent, are 

 included in the iirst call ; 19.4 per cent, in the 

 second call and 51.6 per cent, in later calls; 

 12.4 j>eT cent, are exempt on account of age, 

 0.5 per cent, are aliens, and 1.6 per cent, have 

 already enlisted. As wiU be noticed, 729 are 



exempt on account of age; of these 606 are 

 under age, and 123 over the age limit. The 

 Journal says that unless some arrangement is 

 made, therefore, whereby these students are 

 enabled to complete their medical training, 

 classes in medical schools will be seriously de- 

 pleted ; the supply of physicians for the future 

 will be seriously reduced, and this country 

 will suffer from an error similar to that made 

 in England and France where medical stu- 

 dents were sent to the front. Furthermore, 

 failure to exempt medical students from the 

 draft will be a serious injustice to many, since 

 a few months ago the Council of ISTational 

 Defense, with the apparent agreement of the 

 War Department, urged medical students not 

 to enlist in the Officers' Eeserve Corps but to 

 remain in college and complete their medical 

 training. Had not that request been made, 

 many students would have voluntarily enrolled 

 in officers' training corps, where many of them 

 would doubtless have been successful. Even 

 though less than a third of the medical stu- 

 dents of draft age will be included in the first 

 call, a much larger proportion will be lost to 

 the medical schools, since, in the absence of a 

 definite understanding, many of the others 

 will enlist voluntarily in the ranks, in ambu- 

 lance corps or in officers' training corps. A 

 definite decision on the part of the War De- 

 partment relative to medical students is rm- 

 perative. Unless such decision is made, not 

 only will our civil hospitals lack adequate in- 

 tern service, but the government will lose by 

 the fact that those capable of skilled service 

 will have been deflected to work which can be 

 as well done by others. 



PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF 

 RECRUITS 



According to a press bulletin men of the Na- 

 tional Guards of the various states and of the 

 new draft army will be subjected to thorough 

 mental examinations by expert neurologists 

 and psychopathologists at the concentration 

 camps before sailing to France, to weed out 

 the mentally and nervously unfit, whom the 

 experience of France, Britain and Germany 

 shows have proved useless and a burden at the 



