Hygiene Group Releases Findings

The Hygiene Department has received virtually complete approval from the University Student Hygiene Committee after a year of inquiry. The five-man group released its findings and recommendations yesterday.

Although set up last fall to determine "whether the Department provides the best possible service for the fee charged," the Committee said that "we have not undertaken to criticize the application of funds which were available to the Department.

"Instead," the report goes on, "we examined the sources of those funds." On the basis of this examination the Committee recommended that additional special fees beyond the $15 added to every student's term bill be eliminated, since those fees "did not exceed 4.9 percent of the income," and were a major source of complaint.

Departmental economics might make up for the lost fees, the Committee suggested, but added that it did not know if this would yield any funds since it had "the highest regard for Dr. Bock's ability as administrator." (Dr. Arlie V. Bock is chairman of the Hygiene Department.)

The report also recommended that the University provide wider specialist service, perhaps with the cooperation of the Medical School, suggested that a University drug dispensary be set up, and asked for free chest X-rays and the "same deference" that the Department doctors would accord to "paying patients."

In addition, the committee called for a program of undergraduate sex education and suggested that students who regularly visit a private physician be excused from payment of the annual fee.

Original impetus for the investigation came from the Law School Record, which in the summer of 1947 reported that other colleges provided more service for smaller fees.

Record staffors reached yesterday expressed dissatisfaction with the report. "The recommendations are good," said editor Jerome Shestack 3L, after reading the report, "but I still don't know what happens to my $15."

The committee requested information from 10 other universities, receiving full replies from M.I.T., Chicago, Pennsylvania, and Princeton.

As a result of this survey of other universities, the committee pointed out that M.I.T., Pennsylvania, and Princeton "charge substantially less" than Harvard, that only M.I.T. collects the special fees, and that the Penn fee includes specialist service.