who broke down with psychoneurosis in the service can be treated effectively, cured, returned to duty, and will do a good job after they get back to duty. There is no reason why we can't expect the same kind of results from the provisions of this bill if they are put into operation.

Mr. BULWINKLE. May I ask you something?

Colonel CHALLMAN. Surely.

Mr. BULWINKLE. I am wondering if you have examined the records of the courts martial?

Colonel CHALLMAN. No, sir; I haven't.

I

Mr. BULWINKLE. You are in the Medical Department? Colonel CHALLMAN. Yes; I am in the Surgeon General's Office. have just recently returned from overseas, and I am not too familiar with all these things. They come through our office, all the courts martial that have to do with psychiatric features have to come through our office.

Mr. BULWINKLE. Occasionally, in some cases-it might not be so frequent we find a man, say thirty-odd-years old, who has worked as a common laborer, is married and has several children, not much education. There is something about that man and it has always struck me there was something wrong, because he didn't advance. Now, he goes into the Army; he goes home once, twice, three times during a year, absent without leave. He goes off 6 days one time, 20 days another time. Then he is tried by a general court martial and given 5 years at hard labor. I know there is bound to be something wrong with that man.

Colonel CHALLMAN. I agree with that. Actually I think the Army is quite progressive in the use of psychiatric and physical examinations. In these court martial cases it is a frequent occurrence that a case that is up on a serious charge, where the penalty may be serious, the man is examined beforehand and a report made to the court by a qualified examiner, and as I pointed out, a good many of these cases actually have psychiatric disabilities. But frequently the disability is not such as to relieve him of the responsibility; he still has to take the consequences of his act, even though the psychiatric disability accounted in part for his behavior.

Mr. BULWINKLE. I realize that you can't turn him loose and let him go back home, but I say that something should be done so that his family won't suffer. There has been right much of that.

Mr. BROWN. Couldn't that also come about, as the result of our antiquated court-martial system?

Mr. BULWINKLE. Of course, we have that same thing happening in the civil courts a great many times, unless somebody looks into it carefully. I don't blame the court-martial system, but I do think the background of the man should be studied to get at the bottom of it.

Colonel CHALLMAN. We found that the system did work. I was consultant in the Western Pacific for 3 years until I returned to this country. We set up a training center, such as you described, where this type of man who did not have quite the self-control to take the freedom that is given the ordinary soldier, could be put and supervised more carefully. It was not a punitive institution, but he was looked after more carefully than the average soldier, and it worked out very well with many of these individuals. They were not subjected to the temptations that ordinarily were too much for them.

Another point I would like to point out

Mr. BROWN. May I ask a question?

Colonel CHALLMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BROWN. You won't misunderstand this question, I hope. It doesn't apply to any officer present. But did you ever have any of these neuropsychiatric and psychiatric cases among officers?

Colonel CHALLMAN. It is really very frequent among officers, even medical officers, for that matter.

Mr. BROWN. What percentage, would you say?

Colonel CHALLMAN. On a percentage basis, I can't give you figures for the whole Army, but I can tell you what we had over in the Eastern Pacific. Approximately it amounted to about 2 percent a year.

Mr. BROWN. Do you ever give psychiatric tests to officers who are martinets and order their men unnecessarily, and other things of that nature, such as we get reports about?

Colonel CHALLMAN. Well, sir, when an officer is considered for reclassification for inefficiency, he is ordinarily subjected to a psychiatric and physical examination to determine whether health factors enter into his lack of efficiency.

Mr. BROWN. And lack of judgment?

Colonel CHALLMAN. That is right; his lack of judgment.

Mr. BROWN. Do you have many cases like that?

Colonel CHALLMAN. Yes, sir; we have seen a great many of them. Mr. BROWN. Have you studied officers who have developed the Napoleonic complex, who want everybody else to do exactly what they tell them?

Colonel CHALLMAN. Unfortunately, yes; we have had many such cases. Many of them we have had to hospitalize and return to the United States as patients from our theater. I can speak from my personal experience on that, with men of all grades and ranks.

Having met this problem in the Army, a large number of psychiatric patients and a small number of psychiatrists or psychiatric aids to deal with them, and having worked with it for 4 years, we are concerned with what is going to be the effect on the veterans after they get out of the Army and get back into civil life. There again they are going to have difficulty in effecting an adjustment to civil life. Mr. BROWN. May I go back a moment?

Colonel CHALLMAN. Yes.

Mr. BROWN. Of course, psychiatric specialists test men before they are inducted into the Army; is that right?

Colonel CHALLMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BROWN. Do they test officers very closely as they are being commissioned?

Colonel CHALLMAN. Those officers who go through officer candidate school are checked, but not as closely as the enlisted man on induction. Mr. BROWN. I am wondering why not?

Colonel CHALLMAN. Well, I can't answer that question. I assume the answer would be that one of the major considerations before a man is selected for officer training is the record that he has made in the Army. He is not a new man to us any more. We know what he can do, and we know his stability.

Mr. BROWN. I ask this question because it just appears to me as a layman that perhaps it would be far more important to check the mental stability and reactions of the man who is placed in command

and control of a large number of other mer than it would be to check the individual who is going to be under the supervision of someone else. In other words, I think it is very important that a man who is made an officer and is given authority over a large number of men have the right mental stability, outlook, and so forth. Perhaps if that were done, if more attention were paid, in the selection of officers, to the mental ability and stability, we might not have so many of the cases we hear about. We might eliminate some of our troubles.

Colonel CHALLMAN. You are absolutely correct on that. That is a very well recognized principle in the Army. It has been happening every day in the Army that an officer who has that effect on his men, who is disturbing to their mental health, is relieved, and the generals of divisions, and so forth, if they see one of the officers in their command whose psychiatric rate goes up too high, will oftentimes relieve him on the spot and he does not command any more, because of the fact that he has not been able to handle that aspect of his work. He may be competent technically and every other way, but if he cannot keep the mental illness rate down in his organization he is relieved.

Mr. BROWN. Some officers command the respect of their men, while others, create such resentment among the men as to have an effect on their mental state that is very important.

Colonel CHALLMAN. Very important.

Mr. PRIEST. Colonel, how much more is there to your statement? Colonel CHALLMAN. Just about 2 minutes more.

Mr. PRIEST. Very well, then, you just go ahead. We are not trying to rush you. If there were more, and possibly some questions of you, I would ask you to stand aside for Mr. Meyer, but you go right ahead.

Colonel CHALLMAN. We are concerned about the fate of the men we have been dealing with during these past 4 years in service. We know there are a large number of them in the Army now, and many of them are going to need help when they get back into civilian life. We would like to see the community, and the State, and the Government, organized on some coordinated program to deal with the veteran after he is discharged from the service, and it is of considerable interest to us in the Medical Service of the Army to see some action taken such as this bill contemplates, to carry on the work that we have been doing the very best we could during the war years.

That is all; thank you very much.

Mr. PRIEST. Colonel, we certainly appreciate your statement. Do you have something to be included in the record?

Colonel CHALLMAN. No, sir; I do not.

Mr. PRIEST. Very good; we appreciate your appearance.
Mr. Meyer.

STATEMENT OF EUGENE MEYER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR MENTAL HYGIENE

Mr. MEYER. Mr. Chairman, I am here to testify in favor of the bill as a measure to promote research, education, and practice in the field of psychiatry.

I suppose it is unnecessary to state that I am not a psychiatrist. I am, however, the president of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, of which Dr. George S. Stevenson, who testified yesterday,

is the medical director. I have been interested in the subject for a very long time.

The war has not created, but it has revealed in a truly startling way, the need for the passage of this measure.

While there has been an insufficient supply of doctors in medicine and in surgery, for military and civilian needs during the war, the most hopelessly inadequate supply of medical manpower has been, and now is, in the field of psychiatry.

Even if this bill is enacted into legislation without delay, the number of scientifically trained doctors will remain far behind the needs of the Nation. At best this dearth will continue for some years.

I have visited three large convalescent hospitals and I have recently visited four large manufacturing plants to study the treatment of the returning veteran. In both hospitals and factories, the complaint is about the great scarcity of trained personnel capable of handling properly the men with problems of adjustment.

The war has disclosed the vast numbers of men-and I am sure you already have the figures from witnesses-rejected for the draft, because of deficiencies of the kind coming within the scope of this measure. It also revealed the great proportion of war casualties of the same character.

Psychiatry, which your bill proposes to support, has been the stepchild of medicine. It has received and is now receiving, in my opinion, only a very belated and grudging recognition from the profession and from the medical schools of the country, with very few exceptions.

This bill provides not only funds but gives a needed recognition to the importance of the field.

In proportion to the national need the sums to be appropriated are small, but they will have a value, in my opinion, out of proportion to the amount involved if well administered.

I therefore warmly support the purposes and general principles of this measure.

Mr. PRIEST. Thank you, Mr. Meyer; we have known for a long time of your great interest in this subject and your activities as president of the national committee.

Mr. Brown, do you have a question?

Mr. BROWN. Yes. Mr. Meyer, I didn't have the opportunity yesterday to follow through on my examination of Dr. Parran, so I would like to ask your opinion of a provision or two in this bill. I read this measure, it provides for Federal aid to public and private institutions, schools, colleges, and universities.

Mr. MEYER. What section is that?

Mr. BROWN. I think it is section 7.

Mr. MEYER. Yes.

As

Mr. BROWN. It provides aid to be given to the States. Section 3 really outlines in more detail the way this is to be done, in the making of grants-in-aid, to universities, hospitals, and other public and private institutions and individuals for such projects as are recommended. That is one of the items.

Mr. MEYER. What paragraph is that?

Mr. BROWN. That is paragraph (d) at the top of page 3.
Mr. MEYER. Yes.

Mr. BROWN. In which some of the purposes are set out.
Mr. MEYER. Yes.

Mr. BROWN. I am just wondering, what your opinion is, as to how far the Federal Government should go in aid to local institutions, States, and political subdivisions of States, in medical matters. In other words, where does our field of endeavor start and stop? Is it the duty and responsibility of the Federal Government to conduct research and educational and experimental work, or are we to go further and I don't want to use the word "subsidize"-but let us say-grant monetary aid to private and State institutions, to colleges and universities, and to the various branches of State and local governments?

You

Mr. MEYER. Well, I don't think the Federal Government should take it all over, but as stated in my original statement, the amount being appropriated here, or proposed, is small in proportion to the needs. But I think it can be made a very stimulating factor. cannot ignore the fact that some States are backward and need encouragement and help and stimulation of their interest in these problems, and in other places where, perhaps, they have men, they haven't funds, so that I think that it would be all right if properly administered to make the money go as far as it can in obtaining the results.

Mr. BROWN. You don't recommend legislation on the basis that we depend entirely on proper administration, do you? Don't you think we should fix limits in all legislation?

Mr. MEYER. I think you should put limits on the basis of the purpose and policy. But if you could pass any legislation that men administer without relying on administration I would like to see the bill that does it.

Mr. BROWN. But should we write legislative blank checks? That is my question.

Mr. MEYER. I confine my support to the general principles and purposes of the measure.

Mr. BROWN. Of course, you and I have experienced that appropriations sometimes grow.

Mr. MEYER. Yes; I have noticed a tendency in that direction. But I would say if you did this you would have a chance at least to pass on whether you wanted it to grow or not, and performance would be the test, and if the results were not there you wouldn't go on, and maybe you would even withdraw. I think it is an experiment.

Mr. BROWN. Do you think we should or should not fix some standard or policy by which the Federal Government should measure the distance we should go in moving into the fields of local education or State and local government functions?

Mr. MEYER. Well, I am not a Government-do-everything man, by any means, Mr. Congressman, but as I said, this field has been unrecognized as promptly and fully as it should have been by the medical profession and by the medical schools with very, very few exceptions. The importance of it is tremendous. It is by no means confined to the veteran problem, and I don't see how you are going to get the results which are needed from a national point of view without this kind of intervention. That is really the way I feel about it. I have seen the struggle of the younger men who are trained to understand the importance of the psychiatric approach to human welfare meeting the resistance of the older men who had not happened to study psychiatry because it didn't exist 40 years ago. It reminds me that once there was a French officer in the last war, who was liaison man from the French General Staff. They sent him down to the