MAKERS OF MEN

It is strikingly true of our ingenuous and eager way of preparing to make war, that we see but one thing at a time, and follow that with our whole hearts. We found we needed officers; therefore we should all go into intensive training. We found we needed food; therefore we should plough our public parks, and spade up our front lawns, and plant radishes in our window boxes.

Such spontaneous and universal comprehension of a national need is praise-worthy. But unfortunately modern armies are not composed of simple elements. They are vastly complex, and the abilities which go to make them must be vastly complex. We need officers of the battle-line; we need cultivation of our productive soil. But we need in addition, engineers and artillery men, manufacturers, business men, doctors. If we turn all our technical school men into infantry officers, we shall have no bridges to cross, for none will be built. If we turn all our medical students into farmers, the armies at the front will die of pestilence.

The needs of national service are great. One of the greatest of those is for an efficient and adequate military corps. We have not in our nation now enough qualified doctors to serve the nation at home, and to serve an army of a million men abroad.

The wastage of warfare is appalling. Were it not for the tremendously increased efficiency and knowledge of our medical men and surgeons such wastage would in a few months thin below the minimum of fighting power the strongest armies. Fortunately we are not bound by the ignorance which in the wars of a half-century ago caused the losses of innumerable lives through fever, contagious diseases, and gangrene. The knowledge given to the world by Pasteur and his followers has enabled the medical corps of all the warring armies to restore in the shortest time and with the least loss of effectives wounded or otherwise disabled men to the fighting line. On the efficiency of its medical staff a modern army depends no less than on the battering power of its great guns.

There has appeared a tendency for men in the Medical School and men who are preparing for that School, to cease their course of study and go at once into active service. Few things could be more unfortunate. It is not possible that we may have a surplus of doctors. It is possible that we may have a dearth. Those who learn are no less serving than those who drill. In a year's time a graduated doctor may be worth more to his nation than three first-line officers, and be the cause of saving more lives than fifty times his number of the enemy can destroy.