Co-ordination in Government Medical Service.

Abstract

To the Editor: —It would be an excellent thing could the Committee on Legislation of the American Medical Association study the medical services of the United States as to the number of men employed, the character of the work done, results attained, together with the costs in money outlay. These medical men will be found, I think, as follows: Marine-Hospital Service, Navy Medical Department, Army Medical Department, doing biologic work in the Department of Agriculture (see the work of Stiles on human parasitology, Atwater's food and calorimetric studies on man), in the Department of the Interior as medical examiners in pension cases; and it is possible that there are yet others in the Census Bureau as statisticians in medical statistics. Then, with a summary of this work, its costs and efficiency: the faults and failures of the present system. This study will show that there are employed in various capacities