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154 HISTOKY OF DENTAL SUKGERY

shall not at any time exceed one-eighth nor the number of captains one-third of the
whole number in the said dental corps.
Sec. 4. That the Surgeon-General of the Army is hereby authorized to organize
a board of three examiners to conduct the professional examinations herein prescril>ed,
one of whom shall be a surgeon in the army, and two of whom shall be selected by
the Surgeon-General from the contract dental surgeons eligible under the provisions of
this Act for appointment to the dental corps.
Sec. 5. That the annulment of contracts made with dental surgeons under the
Act of February second, nineteen hundred and one, shall be so timed and ordered by the
Surgeon-General that the whole number of contract and commissioned dental surgeons
rendering service shall not at any time be reduced below thirty.
The committee in submitting this bill, in part, used this hmguage:
While the Military Committee, in recommending the passage of the bill, have been
guided by a purpose to meet an urgent need of the Army on sound business principles,
it is nevertheless gratifying to your committee to incidentally accord a small measure
of recognition to a profession whose members have contributed much to the public
weal and to suffering mankind everywhere.
It was received in the house of representatives on January 30, 1908, and
sent to its military committee, who referred the bill to the secretary of war
for his comments and suggestions. He, in his turn, sent it to the surgeon-
general of the army for examination and recommendation.
This officer, on April 1st, returned it to the secretary of war with an en-
dorsement of non-concurrence, on the plea of the possible expense that might
be involved to the government, should it become a law. His language is as fol-
lows :
The encloeed bill, in my opinion, is defective and .should not be passed in its
present shape. I recommend that this matter be referred to the general staff for their
careful consideration. Whatever may be the advantages of organizing a corps of com-
missioned dental surgeons I think it extremely important that any steps in that direc-
tion should be taken with a full knowledge of what must be expected if such a bill
becomes a law. If congress gives its approval to a -corps of dental surgeons such an
act will simply announce that the government assumes the care and treatment of all
persons who are now entitled to medical care and treatment. The conclusion that must
be drawn from this announcement is that a sufficient number of commissioned dental
surgeons must be provided to give this treatment, or the department must be supplied
with means to procure the necessary treatment from civilian sources just as is now done
by the medical department for medical treatment. With the present dental corps this
would entail the expenditure of thousands of dollars annually. I think it is only fair
to make this frank statement as I do not desire to, in any way, be the means of pro-
curing the war department 's approval of a bill that would ultimately entail great ad-
ditional expense to the government, without doing my part in presenting all the facts
necessary for the intelligent consideration of the measure.