Military Nature Research Articles

The Food Supply of Man

man life span, the decrease of infant mortality, and, as a consequence, to a tremendous growth rate of human population. It has been estimated that the earth's human population is now increasing by 80,000 per day. In many nations (e.g., India and China), the human population pressure is so great that many thousands of their citizens spend all their lives on a subsistence diet which is both qualitatively and quantitatively inadequate. With further advances in the conquest of disease, the earth's human population may be expected to increase even more rapidly than it has during the past century. This further growth will necessitate a great increase in the production of grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy products, and other types of food for human use. Failure of science to provide such food increases will doubtless lead to further demands for Lebenisraum and will inevitably produce grave international crises of a social, political, and military nature.

Applications

We Have received a number of request for military applications of high school mathematics. There are unlimited possibilities in this direction, and this department can only present a few examples suggestive of the larger field. We are using the examples in this issue to provide references to some sources of applications of a military nature.

The Role of the Military in Chinese Government

ONE of the significant differences which distinguish good governments from bad is the subordination of military power to political power and of military personnel to political personnel. The military mind tends to be narrow and irresponsible. Militarists may be experts, but their expertise often prevents them from giving due weight to interests other than military. Military power, unless kept in its proper place, usually runs amok and takes the whole country with it. Up to very recent times, China was signally free from military domination. The strength of the civilian tradition in Chinese government may be illustrated by some of the greatest military upheavals of the last seven centuries. The Mongol conquerors who founded the Yuan Dynasty never rid themselves of the military nature of their organization. Weakness soon followed their initial successes and persisted throughout the dynasty-a short one of barely three generations. Benefiting by the experiences of the Yuan, the Ming and the Manchu founding emperors, although all of them were primarily military-minded, installed civilian regimes as soon as their conquests had ended. It was due to the strength of the tradition of civilian rule that some of the greatest military commanders of the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties were in origin scholars, who, when their campaigns were over, at once resumed civilian status.' The misfortune of modern China is that, at the time of the multitude of paper reforms which enshrouded the country in the first decade of this century, she should have entertained a serious liking for the military institutions of Prussia and Japan. The Prussian tradition had been adopted wholeheartedly by the receptive Japanese samurai when the Japanese looked to the West for instruction. When the time came for China to look abroad, she adopted the military institutions of Japan and Germany.

DELINQUENTS IN THE ARMY

There are a number of selective factors which have operated in determining the group character of the army delinquents with which the present investigation deals. Some of these selective factors have been mentioned; others are easily inferred. Within the limits of the group studied, the following conclusions are drawn: 1. The majority of army delinquents were delinquent prior to entering the army. In about three-fourths of the cases, delinquency in the army seems to be either a continuation of prior delinquent patterns or to arise from predisposing conditions within the person which are simply evoked while in the army. 2. Approximately one-fourth of the group had not been in trouble prior to entering the army and their histories showed no indication that would point toward subsequent delinquency. 3. Most army delinquents are sent to the rehabilitation center for offenses of a military nature; and the military offense in which there is the greatest recidivism is AWOL. 4. Most army delinquents did not recei...

Education in the War Economy

From the point of view of the army, the training in the schools and colleges falls into two general classifications. First, military training. Second, training of a military nature which may be of value to the military service.

A German Long‐Range Seaplane

ALTHOUGH the two prototypes of the Blohm und Voss Ha 139 were first flown in 1937, the machine has never received much attention and, in view of its present topicality, it seems an opportune moment to describe it. Ostensibly the Ha 139 was designed and built, like the Dornier Do 26, for the experimental German air mail services across the North and South Atlantic. In view of the present situation, although it has long been realized that these experiments were actually of a military nature, further point is lent to their venue, as the operators of the service must have gained considerable knowledge of the prevailing weather conditions, not only over the British convoy routes, but also on the routes to America generally.

Commercialism and Industrial Research

NOT many years ago, the British nation was rudely brought to a realisation of its scientific unprepared-ness to meet a major world crisis; a crisis which happened to be of a military nature. The Great War came and its passing left us with a vivid appreciation of the national, if not of the international, value of scientific research; so that science became news, and there was ample public support for the view that in peace, as in war, our future must depend to a very great extent on our progress in scientific research. Industry has made wonderful strides by its aid, and we have substantially earned the right to regard ourselves as a progressive nation as well as a nation of reasonably successful shopkeepers. But we would do well to review our position afresh, and to ask ourselves whether indeed all is as well as it seems. Prof. J. F. Thorpe, the retiring president of the Institute of Chemistry, spoke, in his presidential address, delivered on March 2, words of some gravity on this subject.

Ground Transport for an Air Organisation

Probably few realise that a self–contained organisation for maintaining an air fleet would need many more different types of ground vehicles than aircraft. This is true in the case of the Royal Air Force even if all vehicles of a purely military nature are excluded. It is highly probable that a civilian air organisation of similar magnitude would have fewer types of aircraft, but if it were to be self–contained and operate in different parts of the globe, it could not do with many less types of ground vehicles than the R.A.F. finds necessary.Obviously this depends on the interpretation of the term “self–contained.” Most of the small aerial transport companies have their own ground transport organisations, but they are far from being self–contained in the sense in which the author wishes to use the term to–night. We would all like to see a vast civilian air organisation operating in and between all the different units which comprise the British Empire. Nothing would do more to knit us and the Dominions and Colonies into one impregnable whole.

REVIEW OF THE EAR, NOSE AND THROAT LITERATURE FOR THE YEAR 1919

As might have been expected, the literature for 1919 is full of articles of a military nature having but little bearing on the work of a pediatrician. In addition to this most of the foreign journals have not found their way to this country. <h3>THE EAR</h3> Dean and Bunch¹have constructed a pitch range audiometer driven by electricity that covers the range of hearing in ordinary use without a break, enabling one to test out the hearing very rapidly. Both the pitch and the intensity of the tone are under perfect control. In an article on teaching the deaf child, Goldstein²states that more than 2,000 children were attending the public schools of St. Louis, who had some form of speech defect, many of these, no doubt, being the result of defective hearing. Heilshon observed three patients who had lost their hearing from mumps. Blackwell³divides earache