nizing its initial symptoms in order to treat it before it does its deadly work, we are vulnerable. We need to know more about the filtrable viruses, and to have means of preventing the infections of which they are the causative agents.
The Navy Department is greatly perturbed over the possibility of introducing the malaria-infected mosquito into areas of the southwest Pacific Ocean where, heretofore, certain islands have been free from this devastating disease. It can readily be appre- ciated that such an occurrence might be as disastrous as a major naval defeat.
These are some of the problems which face the Medical Depart- ment of the Navy at present.
When this war is over, the great majority of our Reserve medical officers will leave the service and return to practice in civil life. These doctors will have an entirely different point of view than if they had not served with the armed forces. They will be en- riched in experience, strengthened by discipline and physical hard- ships, matured by what they have undergone, and infinitely wiser in the ways of human beings. These men are giving much — giving generously and constantly — and, it must be remembered, without remunerative reward. They are pouring their knowledge and their scientific skill into the scales to balance them against disease and death. Not a man in the Army, in the Navy, in the Marine Corps, or in the Coast Guard will return from the war but his home- coming has been made possible by the medical officers of the services.
But, I would add, these medical officers have not only given; they, too, have received. And for what they have received, all those to whom they will minister in the years to come will be exceedingly grateful. Their greatest reward will be the realization that their efforts were in saving, or trying to save, life, and not in taking it.
