Nothing Sacred

With the taste of military manhandling still fresh on its palate, the University's ex-service contingent has been quick to continue the war-years habit of beefing at administrative irritants. Some of the best hard luck stories have centered about the minor inconveniences and alleged major short-comings in the conduct of the Hygiene Department. But the sideswipes have been scattered. Only this summer when concerned students began organized agitation did the question of the University's medical service-its efficiency and its expenses-assume significant proportions.

The issue is hardly sacrosanct. Preliminary forays by the Law School Record have exposed data on costs elsewhere which merit serious attention. While there is surely no reason to reach an a priori assumption that "more for the money" is a practical possibility, there is even less justification for an official attitude nonchalantly glossing over the entire matter. Such a guarded status quo too easily becomes accepted as inviolate by a student population caught bodily in the rapid maelstrom of life in Cambridge.

When one wants to know-something, the old Anglo-Saxon custom is to go find out. Here the seemingly obvious course calls for responsible interested parties on the University scene to go about the formation of an impartial, broad-based group to investigate the inner workings of the Hygiene Department and its standing in the intercollegiate picture. Membership could include representatives from the Student Council, Graduate Advisory Council, Law School Record, and Business School News as well as a spokesman for University Hall and a prominent Boston medic.

There will be plenty of places to turn for the first round of evidence: witness the Business School student who is currently conducting his personal look-see into group insurance possibilities. Probing the University community for telling case histories should comprise a "must." In advance of the opening gong the opposing contentions, in addition, form a skeletal controversy for all to sec. On the one hand the Hygiene Department holds that its 113 beds in constant readiness for epidemic or abnormal accident occurrence constitute protection of the profoundest kind. The Department's detractors talk of more comprehensive schemes within a similar price range. It is up to the proposed University-wide Committee on Student Physical Welfare to fill in the relevant arguments on both sides of the case.