DOMINION YOUTH

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 44, 2 December 1940, Page 7

DOMINION YOUTH

STANDARD NOT DETERIORATED.

MEDICAL TESTS SUFFER.

(Per Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, December 1

Contradicting assertions made, in northern centres that on a general average the -physical capacity of the young men of New Zealand had gone down badly since the last war, an Invercargill doctor said to-day that the results of the medical examination of the men called up in the first and second Territorial ballots disproved this. The chief fact to he taken into consideration when contrasting the physical standard of 1914-18 and now, he said, was that in the last war the examination was not nearly so strict as now. The men in this war were being put through tests never given last time. “What the public does not realise is that the examination reservists go through to-day is the strictest possible. The examination is fOO per cent, stricter than in 1914-18,” declared the doctor, who had a great deal of experience in examining men in the last war. The eye tests this time were a great deal stricter, cardiac efficiency teses were applied and a urinalysis taken. These three tests w r ere not. undertaken iii the last war. Finally a complete X-ray examination was being made now which recruits did not havo in the last war. In the last war the medical regulations were so framed as to permit the passing of men with physical defects which, if found in men coming before medical boards to-day, would bar them. There had been cases in the Great War of men being passed who had the sight of only one eye, and those who had hernia, provided a pro-perly-fitting truss was worn. Owing to the advance of science, and the extension of medical knowledge, the tests had been made far more severe.

On the results of the examination of reservists so far, taking these factors into consideration, he was utterly unable to subscribe to the belief that the physical standard of the young men of New Zealand was deteriorating.