Hygiene, Ltd.

The University has announced its intention of expanding the facilities of the Hygiene Department. While the proposed Medical Center will give the University sick-bed space commensurate with its size, a further examination of its current health services would cast light on the meagre medical attention offered the undergraduate who turns in for care at Holyoke Street. While the quality of medical attention offered by the staff is beyond reproach, it is the lack of scope and facilities that forces the average student to spend a tidy sum on outside medical attention if his ills go beyond the simplest sprains and chills.

In such cases, where the services of a specialist are required, the Hygiene Department will act as a willing clearing house, investigating and recommending the best medical care in the area. But the student must spend his own time searching down his physician or surgeon, and, most important of all, he must face the prospect of paying specialists' bills, no minor item, out of his own budget. Additional financial burdens forced on the bedridden undergraduate include a special fee for all services at Stillman beyond a certain short stay (which is covered by the $15 semester medical fee) and the expense of all medicinals used by the patient while on out-patient treatment. Unlike many colleges, Harvard has no pharmacy and must rely on commercial apothecaries for calomel and cough medicine.

With an outstanding Medical School close by it is hard to understand why Harvard cannot tap the store of medical talent allied to the University through Graduate School instructors and faculty members. The plan is in use at midwestern colleges and has provided for inexpensive care to the student body in a broad area covering nearly all the diagnostic and surgical services. A University-maintained pharmacy would supplement these services and go toward the institution of a Health Service closely attuned to the needs and capacities of most students. Clearly these improvements should be considered as an integral part of any expansion of the Hygiene Department.