CHAPTER XVII PHYSICAL AND HEALTH EDUCATION No lessons of the war have pointed more compellingly to educational weaknesses than have the rejections from the service and the assignments to limited service because of physical disability. The Nation has become clearly aware of the loss of man-power in war due to these factors. It should see as clearly the enormous loss of man-power from the same causes during peacetimes, - a loss the more regrettable in that much if not most of it is easily avoidable. From an economic standpoint, the reduction of the wastage due to physical disability is a policy of both wisdom and expediency. But, beyond this economic aspect of the matter, there is the far more important aspect of human happiness and all the social consequences that are intimately bound up with it. The report of the Surgeon General contains the following data concerning limited service. In reading the table one should keep constantly in mind that there were, in many states, large numbers exempted on account of occupations who were also physically unfit for military life or fit only for limited service. The proportions may "cross consequently be considered as representing a section" of our male population between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one. Total number of men examined physically Dec. 15, 1917, to The following table, made from the one given on page 417 of the Second Report of the Provost Marshal General, follows the general arrangement of the tables already presented in this book, so that regional comparisons may be easily made. The facts of the table probably give a fairly representative idea of the variations from physical fitness among the total population. Some additional facts from recent surveys may serve to reënforce the point. The Alabama Survey, already quoted, has an excellent statement of the negative aspects of health. Malaria in Alabama averages 13,000 cases constantly.2 If the earning power be estimated at only $250 per person, the annual loss is $3,250,000 from malaria alone. The death rate from typhoid fever in 1917 was 38.2 per 100,000, a rate almost three times as high as in those portions of the United States which are in the "regis 1 Second Report of the Provost Marshal General, 1919, p. 153. tration area." One child out of every four of school age (6 to 20) is suffering from hookworm in some degree. Of the members of the Alabama National Guard that served on the Mexican border, sixty per cent were affected with hookworm. The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, from 1910 to 1915, found 23,403 individuals infested with hookworm out of a total of 53,643 persons examined.2 The Survey Commission had one hundred white school children and fifty colored children examined in each county of Alabama, with the following results: The situation is probably no worse and no better in Alabama than in other states except those in which health instruction has been carried on for some time and in which health inspection is general in the schools. There are defects that come naturally and are easily remedied, such as decaying teeth and wax in the ears. 1 The registration area includes 44 per cent of the total area and 70.2 per cent of the total population, — including all states that are having 90 per cent or more of all deaths systematically reported in accordance with state laws. 2 Ibid., p. 303. N |