The Daily Alaska Empire

Dr. Council Back from Flying Trip to Surgeon General Meetings

How to get sixteen and a half million blood tests for army service registrants, let alone enough test tubes for the feat, is something the Public Health Service is confronted with.

Dr. W. W. Council, Territorial Director of the Public Health Service, returned on the Alaska Clipper yesterday afternoon after attending meetings in Washington called by Surgeon General Thomas Parran to discuss the work of the Public Health Service with relation to the national defense program.

Big Conference

Directors from the 48 states and Alaska conferred as to means of handling the necessary blood tests of the draft program, but agreed the problem was difficult to meet with only about 150,000 doctors in the country.

Dr. Council proposed a staggered schedule of testing with family doctors to be called in for aid, and also proposed a system of taking tests of those youths who will become of draft age within a year so that rehabilitation of the positive testers can be made before the draft date arrives.

Services Offered

To facilitate the biggest blood testing program in history, the Public Health Service has been offered the services of 300,000 clerks, Dr. Council said.

Test tube manufacturers followed the proceedings closely, Dr. Council remarked, adding, "I don't know where the service will be able to get 16,500,000 test tubes--and the three cent stamp for each one mailed in will be an item in itself."

Making his trip by plane, Dr. Council left here a week ago Saturday, spent four days in Washington, one day in Chicago and two days in Seattle, being absent from Juneau for only eight days.