The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-10
DOCTORS
 TURN ATTENTION ID PAREDNESS|SSUE
Movement to Increase Medi- cal Corps of Army and Navy Urged by Dr.
 w. l.. ROdman

Dallas, Tex, November 9.-Preparedness for national defense was considered to- day by the Southern Medical association, in annual meeting here. Dr. w. l.. Rod
 man, president of the American Medical association. suggested that the associa- tion join in a movement to increase the | medical corps of the army aad the navy in connection with the proposed increases in the military branches.
 Dr. Rodman said that the medical corps had shown lack of preparedness in the Spanish-American war and asked the southern physicians to help in develop l ing an adequate and efficient medical corps to keep pace with any increase In the number of fighting men.
 | His suggestion was referred to the coun- /, cil of the association. a committee com posed of one representative from each of l 15 southern states and from the Dis ! trict of Columbia
 | The council will report Thursday on this
 form of preparedness, termed greater i national need than military preparedness, was the keynote of addresses today be- | fore the Southern Medical association, in
 session here. pr. Rupert Blue, surgeon general of the public health service. who spoke tonight, emphasized the Importance of the maintenance of the body of men | on a war footing against disease" and
 physicians from all parts of the south
 forecaste1 enthusiastically the benefits | such preparedness would bring to all com
 munities.
 | Dr. w. L. Rodman, president of the American Medical association, gave the
 term a military turn when he asked the I association to help develop a medical | corps large enough for any expansion of
 the army and the navy.
 1 Four sectional meetings were held | today. In the department of public 1 health Dr. Isadore Dyer of New Dr. | leans led a discussion of sex hygiene. Dr. R. N. Whitfield of Florence, Miss, | advocated the issuance of public health | bulletins on the subject of sex hygiene, while pr. Robert Wilson of Charleston, I $. C., opposed the teaching of this sub :, Ject in the public schools. The home, 1 pr. Wilson said, was the best place for instruction and the parent the best in- | structor.
 Dr. A. w. Freeman of Washington, presiding officer of the meeting, said ! that physicians should confine their ac : | tivities to the sanitary side of this
 problem and not the moral side.
 As soon as you confine your efforts 1 to the sanitary side" he said, you are going to see results" He illustrated 1 by the work done through sanitation I in the army and navy.
 The public health section also held | a symposium on life insurance. Dr. John L. Davis of Waco, Tex, said that 1 life insurance companies help to con- l serve public health. There are 20,000,- 900 policyholders in the United States | he said in whose good health the com !; panies are interested and 25,000 active agents of the companies whose one | search is for healthy persons to insure.
 and 50,000 company medical examiners Touching on drinking, he said statistics lately issued by 37 leading insurance companies showed there is mo such thing as safe or moderate drinking" | The meeting of the section on medicine
 was devoted to a discussion of the care of infants. The spectators included Dr. J. Ross Snyder of Birmingham, Dr. l.. l w. Elias of Ashevile, N. C., and Dr..
 L. R. Dubuys of New Orleans.
 pr. Isadore Cohn of New Orleans pre- | sided at the session of the surgery sec
 tion and Dr. Joseph B. Greene of Ashe- vile, N. C., acted as the presiding of l ficer in the section on ophthalmology. l Dr. Green congratulated the eye. ear,
 nose and throat specialists on their free
 dom from the insidious curse of fec l splitting" Discussing adenoids, pr. Green said:
 1 q am of the opinion that the opera tion for adenoid removal Is so relatively free from danger and its effects so ben eficial, particularly in preserving the or- gan of hearing, that it should be ad-
 vised without the usual pronounced indi- IcatiOns''