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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 877 



mimity should pay the hospital and the 

 physician for such as is really necessary. 

 To what extent, beyond mere charity work, 

 the public should pay for treatment of dis- 

 ease by physicians there is room for an 

 honest difference of opinion. Some would 

 have all medical treatment furnished free 

 by the state, others would have none. Most 

 of the profession, as pointed out above, 

 approve of the state employing physicians 

 in the army, the navy and in charitable and 

 penal institutions. In public educational 

 institutions the state is under special obli- 

 gations to safeguard the health because of 

 the compulsory features of our educational 

 laws. While much can be done along the 

 lines of sanitation and preventive medicine 

 in the schools, much treatment must be 

 given individual pupils if this work is to 

 be effective. Where the law provides for 

 medical supervision of the schools it usu- 

 ally provides that the family of the child 

 shall be notified of the need of treatment 

 and shall be expected to employ a physician 

 for this purpose, except in charity cases 

 where special provision is made. At pres- 

 ent this is probably the most practical sys- 

 tem, although only from twenty to eighty 

 per cent, of children needing treatment 

 actually get it. It is most efficient where 

 there are school nurses to follow the 

 children to their homes and explain 

 matters to the parents. 



The need of proper medical treatment 

 during school life is illustrated by the son 

 of a well-known physician. The boy was 

 slow in the grades, and took five years to 

 get through college. In some doubt the 

 father allowed him to begin a course in 

 medicine. Soon after he entered the med- 

 ical school some one suggested he needed 

 eye glasses, although he never had sup- 

 posed he needed them. When these were 

 obtained a new world was opened, con- 

 tinued study became possible and marked 



professional success followed. A pair of 

 glasses in the primary school might have 

 saved the boy some years in school and 

 much chagrin. 



In normal schools, colleges and universi- 

 ties an increasing amount of attention is 

 being given to caring for the health of the 

 students. This care takes several forms. 

 Instruction in personal and public hygiene 

 is now quite general and is required in a 

 majority of colleges. Departments of 

 physical training designed to promote 

 physical health are also quite general. 

 Committees to look after the sanitation of 

 the grounds and buildings are common, but 

 have not in most cases been given sufficient 

 authority to do really efficient work. Class- 

 room ventilation, for instance, is in general 

 wretched. In several of the universities 

 infirmaries are provided to take care of sick 

 students and in others medical advisers or 

 school physicians are engaged to advise or 

 treat those who are ill. Sometimes a spe- 

 cial fee is charged each student to provide 

 funds to cover the cost of this medical 

 service, at other times it is paid for out of 

 general university funds and in some in- 

 stances treatment is free for poor students 

 while the well-to-do are supposed to pay for 

 services received. 



At Wisconsin we have a medical adviser 

 with a staff of three assistant physicians, 

 two nurses, a trained laboratory assistant 

 and an office attendant. Careful medical 

 examinations are made of all freshmen and 

 of such upper classmen as require it. 

 Regular daily office hours are held for con- 

 sultation with students, office treatment is 

 given and some visiting is done at rooming 

 houses of students confined there by illness, 

 although in severe or prolonged illness the 

 student is expected to get his own physician 

 when he can afford to pay. More treat- 

 ment is given than was originally contem- 

 plated, but our experience in Madison has 



