The Surgeon General himself, Major Gen. W. C. Gorgas, was appointed to the office in recognition of the invaluable services rendered by him as Chief Sanitary Officer of the Panama Canal Zone. The story of his work there in protecting the laborers in the Panama Canal from infectious diseases is one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of American medicine. Without that work the efforts of Goethals would have been as fruitless and as costly in lives and money as those of De Lesseps. The Surgeon General's still greater task now is to provide against every emergency which may affect the health and lives of millions of men taken from the fields, the farms, the factories, and the counting houses of the country, gathered into camps for organization and sent across 3,000 miles of ocean. He must know how many men will be taken sick, and where. He must know how many men will be wounded, and where, and he must have at those points adequate provision of expert surgeons and enlisted men, of medical and of surgical supplies, of food and of clothing, of housing and of transportation, so that at no time will any American soldier be sick without succor, or lie wounded without aid. In carrying out this gigantic task the Surgeon General has mobilized the medical forces of the country, calling into his office the leaders in every specialty of medicine and of surgery. At their desks as early as 7 o'clock in the morning will be found medical specialists whose professional incomes are written in five and six figures, but who have abandoned these incomes for the modest pay of a Major, who have given up their luxurious homes for a Washington boarding house, and who, instead of enjoying a well-earned leisure, toil ceaselessly from early morning until late at night in their efforts to co-ordinate most effectively the work of the doctors in the war. It is for the purpose of doing justice to the attainments of these men that General Gorgas is advocating scores of new commissions of high rank in the national army. Every morning at 7:30 the Surgeon General's truck delivers his mail at the Mills Building, at Seventeenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, in which are situated the central executive offices. The mail is distributed and on the desks of the officers for final disposition not later than 9:15. Within twelve working hours practically every communication received will have been acted upon and returned to permanent files. Here, as in every other phase of the work, a specialist has been employed, Captain J. L. Gooch having been called from his position as subscription manager for the Butterick Company to organize the office routine. The most approved mechanical devices, including statistical machines, have been installed under Captain Gooch's direction.