The All Seeing Eye

The Hygiene Department's recent and timely offer of anti-influenza injections to all undergraduates serves as an example of the type of anti-disease program that can be executed by a college medical center and, at the same time, points up one of the most marked deficiencies of Harvard health care--the lack of systematic x-ray examinations for University members. Students are no less susceptible to disease than workers in any other sedentary occupation. Yet the prevailing type of examination given to Freshmen and veterans will uncover only such symptoms as are subject to external visual detection.

Cornell University has for years immortalized undergraduate viscera on photographic plates, thereby unmasking many incipient diseases. Mass x-ray programs, recently inaugurated in Watertown and Somerville, have uncovered a numerically small but potentially serious number of cases of tuberculosis and lung tumor among men in their early twenties. Even veterans, recipients of pre-separation examinations, cannot feel completely sanguine about their physical condition, for their x-ray plates are inspected by busy and not always thorough medics, who view the whole procedure as a vexatious but necessary duty.

Gently prodded by President Conant, who was favorably impressed by the x-ray examination system he observed at one southern college, the Hygiene Department is considering inaugurating such a system at Harvard. But the project has reached the 'consideration' stage on several past occasions. It is no easy task for a Hygiene Department, chronically harassed by personnel and equipment shortages to undertake the x-raying of several thousand men, particularly when the only machines now available are located at Stillman. However, the plan is brought nearer the realm of the possible by the offer of the Massachusetts Public Health Service to make available the necessary equipment to any groups or organizations that desire it. This factor plus the lasting contribution of such a program to the well-being of the Harvard community should encourage the Hygiene Department to include x-rays in required physical examinations.