The record in curative medicine, especially on its surgical side, is one of increasing triumph over serious disease and injury, in which the discovery of anaesthetics and of Listerism have borne an essential part. None of us can, however, be satisfied with the success already obtained, and I have elsewhere given reasons for concluding that at least one-half of the mortality and disablement still occurring at ages below 70 can be obviated by the application of medical knowledge already in our possession. The Great War has shown both in Great Britain and in America the extent to which defects and disease exist in would-be recruits to our armies. In the United Kingdom only two-fifths of a large section of recruits could be placed in the first grade; and among American recruits out of two and one-quarter million men measured and examined physically at local boards 29.1 per cent. were rejected on physical grounds; though in the introduction to the Official Bulletin (No. 11, March, 1919) it is pointed out that many of the disabilities have little importance in civil life, and that these considerations possibly “reduce to 15 per cent. the proportion of males 20 to 30 years old who carry a serious handicap against normal activity in civil occupations.” These figures, whatever doubt may attach to their exact arithmetical value, signify the existence in the community of a large amount of physical disability which must greatly reduce the sum of national efficiency and happiness. The records of our medical examinations of school children bring out the same fact, and emphasize the necessity not only for school clinics on an immensely larger scale than at present, but also for additional medical and nursing care in connection with child-bearing and during the pre-school period, which would discover defects and disease at an earlier stage, and would secure the provision not only of early preventive treatment, but also of more systematic improvement of the sanitary environment of maternity and childhood. _Present Extent of Socialization of Medicine_