August. 1936 Efforts to help Civilian Conservation Corps men locate employment are undoubtedly meeting with good results. Camp authorities are deeply gratified over a recent report from Director Robert Fechner's office indicating that 134,056 men left the Corps during the year 1935 to accept employment. SUMMARY In conclusion, may I say that we in Civilian Conservation Corps education believe that there is a great future for the Civilian Conservation Corps in human as well as physical conservation. Providing as it does a combined program of training and work designed to meet individual needs, the Corps should become an integral part of the educational and social system of the country. It could serve to aid materially our public schools and colleges in broadening the type of education offered youth and in affording them work experiences. I feel that you will agree with me that the Civilian Conservation Corps has any number of promising possibilities. Having come through three years of testing, three years of testing, the Corps now awaits further use as an ongoing part of American institutional life. Plans for the future of the Civilian Conservation Corps, I know, will be of concern to you. We have ahead of us the work of consolidating the gains made by the Corps thus far, and the perfecting of its many services. To this end, I invite your hearty cooperation and support. In our day the science and art of medicine has ar- DISTRUST OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD AS APPLIED TO THE SOCIAL SCIENCES R. R. SPENCER Senior Surgeon. U.S.F.H.S. Not long ago, a writer in one of our prominent magazines claimed that science has failed in three important ways. The achievements of sciences, it was stated, have failed to explain the meaning of life, have failed to give us to give us a satisfactory system of education, and have failed to make us happier. Although there are satisfactory answers to each of these indictments, we would call attention to the general distrust of the scientific discipline which extends even to physicians. This is particularly true when science attempts to deal with problems in the social field. While the average physician is quite satisfied that one can study satisfactorily the behavior of a bacterium or an amoeba, and that from the collected and systematized data, one is able to make certain generalizations regarding the reactions of these lower forms, he has at the same time an almost instinctive feeling that this is not true regarding the behavior reactions of man. The greatest drawback to the modern medical specialist is that he has centered his attention upon the behavior of some organ, or part of the body, and does not pay enough attention to the behavior patterns of the patient as a whole. Nor is he familiar enough with the social implications of the disease process. Medical schools are now compelled to make students think a great deal about the social aspects of medical practice. It is almost impossible even after long conditioning in the effectiveness and potency of the scientific method of approach, entirely to overcome the dragback of our traditional and hereditary modes of thought and attitudes of mind. For example, to a class class of sixty-three second year medical students, it had been repeatedly explained throughout a course in "Personal Hygiene," that science is interested only in verifiable and objective facts; that science insists upon rejecting the validity of all subjective thoughts and feelings. A scientist was defined as "one who has lost the capacity (which we all have as children) for deluding oneself, who loves intellectual honesty, who casts aside one's likes and dislikes, parts company with tradition and authorities, and who has learned to see facts, not as he wishes them to be, but as they really are." The average age of the students was 24.4 years. 55 were men; and 8 were women. In the final written examination, the class was asked the following question: "Can science deal effectively with the problem of human behavior and morals? Give the reason for your answer." Controversial questions of this type were asked, not with the expectation that the medical student would be able to reason faultlessly 102 August, 193€ upon such topics, but rather to enrich his experience, to stimulate his interest, to cause him to think, and to broaden his horizon in the social field, where all modern trends indicate the physician will play a far more effective role in the future than he does today. To this question, three students replied unequivocally that science cannot deal effectively with human behavior and morals. Four expressed doubt about the value of science. Seven alone considered science and the scientific method as the only means we have of being sure of our facts, although this was the viewpoint stressed by the instructor. The answers of two students, although in the affirmative, rightly belong among the negative answers, since science was defined by them as systematized knowledge, and "revelation" was included as a part of that knowledge, hence a part of science. The remaining forty seven students answered "Yes," to the question but none gave as convincing reasons as the seven who considered science as the only valid method of dealing with human behavior and morals. As a matter of possible interest, we give below ten quotations from the examination papers, selected as representative of contrasting viewpoints: 1. "Science is derived from the Latin 'scientia' which means knowledge and hence my answer is that science can deal effectively with the problem of human behavior and morals. Human behavior is controlled by our obedience to the law of God and the law of the State." 2. "There are certain things that you cannot experiment upon in the laboratory and yet we can know about them by relating them with our higher powers." 3. "Time, age, and the individual himself are the only factors that can control morals and behavior." 4. "I do not believe that science can deal effectively with the problem of human behavior and morals because of the fact that the scientist is not able at all times to control the conditions under which man lives." 5. "The environment is something which it (science) can take a hand in regulating. The majority of the criminals of today are criminals not because they were born so but because their environment has been such that they have gotten started on the wrong road of life, probably before they realized the significance of their course. A careful check up reveals that the number of that the number of juvenile delinquents has been definitely reduced in those areas where clubhouses have been erected for children." 6. "It seems only a matter of common sense that the best answer to the problem of human behavior can be arrived at by means of science, but as yet science has not been applied to this problem...sociology is not yet a science." talics ours 7. "If all people had the benefit of true scientific education, I believe that there would be no problem of behavior and morals." 8. "It seems to me that the only hope of civilization lies in the application of the scientific method to its problems." "The problem of morals is simply a challenge to the scientist." 10. "Nothing is above or below science." It would seem that these answers point unmistakably to the need of exposing the student early in the process of education to the methods of science. Six years ago the Committee on Research, in the Association for the Advancement of Science said: "We believe that all education from prekindergarten age on through the university, should have this encouragement of the spirit and habit of research as a main object....We believe that teaching should be conducted only by those who have the research attitude themselves and have ability to cultivate it in their pupils." The results of the above examination would have been far more interesting if the same question had been asked at the beginning of the course and the answers compared with those given in the final test, and which followed considerable indoctrination. We must not accept any speculations merely because ence. August, 1936 BOOK REVIEWS NOTE: Reviews published in the Health Officer are . LENGTH OF LIFE: Louis I. DUBLIN AND ALFRED J. LOTKA. NEW YORK: THE RONALD PRESS COMPANY, 1936. 400 P. $5.00. This volume, which is a study of the life tables, should be on the bookshelf of everyone actively at work in the field of public health: The authors have clothed the life table, that statistical "skeleton of dry bones," with the "living story of the biological and sociological circumstances determining the course of human existence." Chapter 1 describes the essential parts of the life table; using as an example the mortality conditions prevailing among white males in the United States over the three year the three year period, 1929-1931. From these data are calculated at different ages the expectation of life, or mean after lifetime Illustrative examples are given of the type of questions that can be answered by the aid of such a table. Chapter 2 discusses the life table as a record of progress from antiquity to the end of the nineteenth century. Chapter 3 considers the gain in expectation of life in the United States during during recent times. Other chapter headings are as follows: Chapter 4, Geographic distribution of longevity in the United States; Chapters 5 and 6, Biological aspects of the life table; Chapter 7, The inheritance of longevity; Chapter 8, The contribution of medical and sanitary science to human longevity; Chapters 9 and 10, Longevity in relation to physical condition and to occupation; Chapters 11 and 12, Application of the life table to population problems and to economic problems; Chapter 13, Life tables based on the experience of life insurance companies; Chapter 14, Life table construction. The book impresses one anew with the fact that man's battle against disease has been most successful in the case of children and young adults. The ancient Roman who successfully warded off the perils of disease until age 50, had as good a chance of living to a ripe old age as his counterpart in the United States today. The chronic diseases of adult life now present a challenge to medical science. If mortality be considered an index of health, the healthiest State is South Dakota, with a death rate of 7.6 per 1,000 (adjusted for variation in age and sex distribution) and the least healthy is New Mexico with a death rate of 15.6 per 1,000. The expectation of life at birth for white males is 64 years in South Dakota, and 49 years in New Mexico. The States with outstandingly high expectation |